


Every Rose Has its thorns

by SaoriseStarling



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Creepypasta, Gen, Original Character(s), Running Away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 42,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29077377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaoriseStarling/pseuds/SaoriseStarling
Summary: So I’ve finally decided to post the first chapter of my creepypasta fanfic Every Rose Has It’s Thorns. This is based on an RP that I’m doing with @creepypasta-shtick on tumblr so this takes place in their universe that they created so a lot of this were their ideas too just as much as mine. You should go check them out!. Maplehood creek, Rosewood Prep, and Tabby Anderson belongs to me.Tabby Anderson, a broken girl who's been tormented mind and soul. Already has been suffering through the loss of all of her friends and abuse from her step dad. She finally realizes that she cannot stay where she was for a moment longer so she makes the logical choice to run away. Attempting to make a new life for herself little did she know that the opportunity of a life time would show up right at her feet on that one fateful night.
Relationships: Tobias Erin "Toby" Rogers | Ticci Toby & Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Tabby Anderson laid awake staring blankly up at the ceiling. She was replaying the last months worth of events that happened in her life over and over again in her head. Like a broken record. Over the course of a month she watched the ones she held close all jump to their deaths one by one while everyone’s cheering drowned out her own screams of terror. She could still hear the breaking of the glass window as Horatio, the guy who made all of her friends jump to their deaths, forcefully shoved her fist through the window. It was an unforgettable sound as it would be one that would haunt the rest of her life. She let out a silent gasp as she clenched her bandaged left hand from the phantom pain. She no longer had any use of her left hand as that was gone forever now. Living as a constant reminder of what she failed to do.  
She winced from the fresh bruises and scars that never healed as she turned over to her side as she looked at the alarm clock. It read 2am in big red numbers. She let out an audible sigh and she squeezed her eyes shut as she banged her head over and over again on her pillow. Insomnias a bitch as it was but it was even more of a bitch to deal with when your stomach is empty and your mind is full. She realized that she had school in a couple of hours with the strict regimen that her stepdad had her on.  
“On top of no sleep for tonight I also have to deal with another day of hell at Rosewood Prep and another day of hell at home too. All by myself”, She said in thought.   
She looked around at her surroundings in her room. It was pretty minimalist for the most part. She looked at her dresser with the lopsided mirror that made the shadows in the room dance. She had her Rosewood Prep uniform laid out for the next day. She had her stack of unfinished homework that she didn’t finish on top of the school textbooks. She would scramble at breakfast tomorrow before she went to class to finish the homework. Laid on the side of her school books and homework was her black bag that she’s had since forever. She then looked at her closet door that was slightly ajar. There was nothing in it except for a few nice shirts and a lacey pale blue flower dress that hung up in there.   
Tabby flopped back onto her pillow as her eyes made their way back up to the ceiling. She wasn’t sure just how long she could make it at Rosewood and at home since it was just her now. I mean her only motivation for living was taken from her and Rosewood wasn’t a place you could survive on your own. She didn’t know if she could make it to graduation. She then came up with the dawning realization. One that made her bolt up straight in her bed with her unnaturally wide eyes growing wider. If she stayed any longer she would be killed for sure, whether it was by Horatio, her step dad or herself. Either way one of those three would get her it was only a matter of time. Tabby couldn’t die not yet at least. Not until she fulfilled her promises of avenging her friends and killing Horatio once and for all. She got up and winced at her bruises that were still tender. She got dressed in a white tee shirt and black jeans with faded dirty pink converse. She got her black bag and began to pack. She packed a couple of photos, one of her mom, stepdad, herself, her older and younger brothers, one class photo in the 8th grade that was just her and her now deceased friends, a picture of her little brother, and a couple of sketches of her that her best friend Autumn made. She then packed some clothes, hair brush and toothbrush. She was about to sneak out when she realized she forgot the most important thing. Tabby ran back to her dresser and took out the money she’s been saving for the last two years from her job at the This or That restaurant and her red plaid jacket that shes had since the 6th grade. It was enough money to buy a bus ticket and have a little leftover to live until she found a job and got a stable income. After she pocketed the money safely away and tied her jacket around her waist, she snuck out through her window.   
Tabby landed with a soft thud on to the ground she laid there for a bit and groaned. She got back up and brushed herself off and picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulders. Tabby took a few moments to appreciate the peacefulness of the night. For it being in the middle of November it was surprisingly warm. Must be one of those freak mother nature weeks or something. She could hear the few cars going by occasionally and there was no sound of people. She could hear the wind rustling through the trees that were the woods surrounding her town. Tabby knew that there were shortcuts in her section of the woods that led to the next town of HolyAnn. That was where the bus stop was and where she could buy a bus ticket and get out of Maplehood Creek for good. Tabby kept her back to her apartment complex and ran straight into the woods and never looked back. Ever.  
Meanwhile deep in the heart of the woods, the whimpering of the woman before them was not stirring Hoodie’s sympathies. She could shake and cry all she wanted, about how she needed to get home to her children and husband. Hoodie didn’t particularly care all that much. Masky turned to look at Hoodie.  
“Hm, do you think we should let her go?”, he asked in a taunting voice clearly mocking the poor woman’s pleads.  
Hoodie and Masky loved to toy with their victims. In Toby’s opinion, it made them take too long to get the job done. However, the creativity and cruelty the two of them displayed were why they were some of the Slenderman’s favorites. Toby noted that they were only violent with victims around each other. Solo missions and missions with only one or the other resulted in the two being much less brutal. Though, Toby noted, Jeff was much more crazed and violent than these two. Toby’s head snapped up when he heard the woman scream in pain. He did not turn to see what one of the men had done to her. Someone in the woman’s family was trying to get information about the Slenderman. Killing her would be sending a message. Toby continued to stare off into the woods, knowing the direction he was staring into was where several houses were.   
Tabby continued to curse herself as she got deeper and deeper into the woods. She was clearly lost but she refused to admit it to herself. She then heard a woman’s scream. Tabby’s fight or flight instinct kicked in and she was on high alert as always. She thought she was running away from the danger only to stumble upon a masked man, a man with a frowning mask, and a man with orange goggles and the corpse of the dead woman. She locked eyes with the orange goggled man. She unfortunately has the freeze response so she couldn’t run or fight even if she wanted to at this minute. Tabby was a pitiful sight to see. All covered in various bruises and scars of different colors and sizes, unnaturally wide, haunted hazel eyes that were colored underneath from lack of sleep and were slightly sunken back due to malnourishment. Her cheeks were slightly hollow also due to malnourishment and she stood in a potential fighting stance that exposed her bandaged left hand. She quickly realized that running would ensure her getting killed. If she was going to die she was going to die with what little dignity she had left and face death face on, She wasn’t going down without a fight.   
“Oh fuck…”, she let out quietly.  
Like with everything else in her life she had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was having a flashback to when she was 12 with a similar situation with her step dad happened. Death was not new to her; she was the least fazed by that. She was more worried about her own survival at the moment. She shook her head to get rid of the flashbacks and to focus more on the situation at hand. Should she go with the situation or fight?  
It did not matter how quiet the girl was. Hoodie and Masky have been doing this line of work for a long time. They were also blessed by the Slenderman with practically supernatural senses. Hoodie stared coldly at the girl. Masky chuckled.  
“Well, well, well what do we have here?”, he said looking at the frail stranger in front of them.  
Toby continued to make eye contact with the girl. He recognized the signs of abuse and neglect and had a flashback of his own. He had been hiding in a closet with his older sister. He couldn't have been more than eight or so at the time. He remembered his father yelling and screeching at his mother. The sounds of a fight and his mother screaming. He remembered footsteps stomping up the stairs and his father calling for his sister and him to come out. He remembered his sister covering him in towels and blankets to hide him just before his father opened the closet. His sister had saved him from a beating that night.   
He snapped back to the present when he heard Hoodie speak, in his raspy quiet voice.  
“Let’s just kill her there’s no point in leaving her alive”  
Masky seemed to be considering that.  
“Alright, Hoodie, you-”  
“No”, stated Toby abruptly.  
“I’m sorry what?”, asked Tabby surprised.  
The two men stopped and stared at the newer proxy.  
“Don’t be ridiculous”, Tim began to lecture Toby.  
Toby, however, stood his ground.  
“No let’s just let her go”, he stated  
“Are you fucking stupid”, Masky stated coldly, “That is a major breech of conduct”  
Toby shook his head,”There’s really no point in killing her”.  
Hoodie just listened as the two men began to debate. He personally figured that killing the girl was unnecessary as they were not ordered to do so. However, he realised that they just couldn’t let her go either.  
Tabby rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in defense. Although she looked like a mixture of ready to either bolt or fight.   
“Oh please killing me would be a sweet blessing compared to the 17 years that I had and specifically with this month in general”. She stated  
She didn’t dare look at Toby for too long as she quickly learned growing up that if she looked at someone directly in the eyes for too long, it meant a challenge and resulted in a sure beating.  
“If I do get let go I’m going back to where I live, clearly I picked a bad night for this and didn’t think this through enough. I’m going to find that bottle of whiskey in the cabinets that I know damn well my parents have hidden somewhere and I’m going to drink myself to oblivion and forget this encounter ever happened”, Tabby added outloud talking more to herself than to the others. She hasn’t been killed yet so staying and going with the situation was her best option.  
Hoodie spoke up.  
“Are you sure you’d go back home?”, he asked bluntly.  
Masky glanced at him. It was like he could sense that Hoodie was analyzing the kid.  
“I mean you’ve just gotten away from em, hm?”, Hoodie prodded as he gestured to her black backpack.   
Hoodie was known for being scarily perceptive. Even Masky was staring at him.  
Tabby huffed and pushed her hair back.  
“I...have nowhere else to go but if I stayed I would be dead in the very near future. So I was running away. But obviously this is a bad night to do so, clearly I didn’t think this through enough and I have one other to protect…”, she said defensively.   
Masky hummed.  
“I think that if living is such a hassle to you then-”, he was cleaning the bloody blade off his jacket.   
“No! Lets not kill her-!”, Toby intervened again.  
“Why?”, asked Tabby quietly.  
Toby looked at the girl and then looked down.  
“Because I understand what you’re going through”,   
Toby whispered.  
Hoodie pretended that he hadn’t heard what he said while Masky scoffed and was about to argue again when Hoodie spoke up.  
“Let’s take her to our boss. Let him decide”  
“Hoodie! He has to ask to see a human. Just simply bringing one to him-”, Toby protested.  
“It’s better than letting her go”, said Hoodie with a shrug.  
Everyone looked back at Tabby for her decision. It was either this or death. Her options were limited.  
“Alrighty lets see here….I can’t run….That would ensure my death and I’d be hunted down for sure...I can’t fight all three of you at once….I really have nothing to lose anymore….so going with you guys seems like the best course of options to ensure my survival for now…I really don’t have much of a choice now do I?”, she took a deep breath, stood up straight and looked at them with an emotionless expression, “Lead the way I guess. The sooner I know me fate the sooner I can carry on with my life dead or alive”  
Hoodie nodded,”You’re right. Even if you ran or even if we let you go our boss would have us hunt you down”  
Masky nodded and perked up.  
“I’m impressed with your ability to make a rational decision in a life or death situation”, he mused,”Toby. You walk with her and make sure that she doesn’t try anything”  
They were going to break the rules just this once. Maybe the boss would take pity on the girl. Afterall, he’d done the same with Toby. Toby went to stand next to the girl as Masky and Hoodie led the way deeper into the woods.  
Tabby moved a couple of steps from Toby to give him space. She just looked at the ground praying that he wouldn't beat her or kill her. Not yet. She walked with Toby not daring to speak. Being used to sneaking around she was quite stealthy. She made very little noise to where you would almost forget that she was walking with you. She was fidgeting with the hem of her white shirt like she was wringing someone's neck. Even though she showed no emotion. She was anxious. Her anxiety was skyrocketing. She had to fight the urge to run every time she heard a noise. Her eye twitches occasionally. That was due to her being taken off meds that she didn't need because doctors refused to do diagnosis correctly.  
Toby had no intention of harming her. He could tell that she wasn't doing too well, and he couldn't really blame her. They passed the corpse of the dead woman as he followed the two older proxies. Hoodie and Masky were having their own conversation ahead of them. Toby decided to try to chat.  
“Er..I’m Toby”, he stated, “What’s your name?”  
He really didn’t expect a positive response from her. Why should he? He knew that she was probably freaking out. He did too when he was put in this situation.  
“My name is Tabby”, she replied looking at Toby for a quick moment.  
She looked wary and cautious but decided to show no fear. Hoodie and Masky paused in front of a haggard old tree with the boss' symbol carved into it. Masky pulled off his glove and pressed the symbol with his bare hand. It began to glow faintly. It seemed like the woods grew darker, as if shadows were melting and joining together in some kind of macabre dance. Toby remembered being absolutely terrified of the opening of a portal when he was new. Especially a portal that led right into the heart of the Slenderman's domain.   
Tabby kinda looked up and around her in a mixture of awe and mortification. She stopped fidgeting slightly occasionally wringing her shirt before catching herself and smoothening out. She was desperately trying to show no signs of weakness despite how she looked.  
Toby understood. Hoodie went through the shadows first and just seemed to vanish. Masky nodded to Toby and Tabby.  
“You two are next Toby will lead the way”, he said.  
Toby smiled at Tabby reassuringly.  
"It-It's just cold”, He assured her. His face twitched a bit. Damn it he had been doing so well so far, "It won't hurt or anything."  
Tabby gave him a hint of a small smile although she was still suspicious and didnt trust him or any of them for that matter one bit. Her eye twitched again. But she didn't raise herself to be a little bitch so she jumped through the portal after Toby. She hid her left arm behind her back to avoid any questions about her hand.  
It was cold and dark. Toby felt his feet hit something soft and cold. The ground always felt off. He heard the sound of a lighter clicking, and turned and saw Masky behind them with a lit lighter. The small flame wasn't nearly enough to fully illuminate the entrance, but it was enough. Hoodie was waiting for them near what looked like a thick wall of foliage. Hoodie had his arms crossed and looked a little impatient. They had to take a walk through the Pocket to even get to the boss' place, which would be dangerous for the human, as she was, well, a human that wasn't a pet in a haven of killers.   
"We don't have all day." Hoodie said firmly.  
"I'm here" she said rather defensively.  
“Good”, Hoodie stated.  
Now he took off his glove. Masky protested a bit.  
"I can do it, my glove is already off-”  
Hoodie ignored him and sliced his palm slightly. He waved his hand in a way that would splatter the blood on the plants. Just like that, they slithered back, creating a doorway that seemed to lead into a huge town. Hoodie walked resolutely forward. Masky sighed and put his glove back on.  
"You two go after him." He said.  
Tabby nodded not looking at him. She quickly walked a little ahead of Toby but she wasn't more than an arms length away from him. She looked around at her surroundings. It was very different from her hometown where the only sinister thing was Rosewood Prep where she goes to school. She was used to the feeling of darkness making observations to herself.  
Toby offered her a small smile.  
"Make sure you stay close..." he warned her quietly.  
Tabby nodded slowly, slowing down her pace to be evenly matched with Toby. She was careful to avoid eye contact with everyone.  
The town was bustling. Toby saw some people he knew outside. Clockwork's bar was bustling with activity. He could see EJ perched on a bench, eating...something. Judging from the blood splatters on his hands and clothes, Toby figured he knew what it was. The sky was clear and very dark. There were a bunch of plants and trees that Toby knew no human would have ever seen before. It was a very colorful place surprisingly, save for the pitch black sky and dark ground. But it was always cold. And it always felt a little off. Lights floated against the sky, giving the illusion of some sort of stars. The town was also illuminated by lamps and the lights from the buildings.  
"It's...different....definitely not like Rosewood Prep" she said quietly more to herself.  
Toby nodded.  
"Yeah. That's the school in the town right?" He asked.  
He was homeschooled so he wasn't too sure. Masky walked behind them and Hoodie walked in front. A woman in a tight black dress and a wig stopped Masky temporarily and handed him a file. He seemed to thank her and continued to follow them.  
Tabby nodded politely as she walked by the woman.  
"it's one of them unfortunately. There's also Maplehood Creek elementary school. I went there for the first 4 years then I got transferred over Rosewood" she gave him a bitter smile and a bitter laugh "In Rosewood you'd either have to be very rich, mentally disturbed or very intelligent to get in. And I'm two out of the three" her eyes showed a dark, pained haunted expression.  
Toby nodded. He understood.  
"Yeah, I've heard that about that school."  
He looked around, then whispered.  
"That woman that gave Masky the file used to go there too. You probably didn't know her or anything but she did go there." He stated earnestly.  
It was true. Jane had gone there. Toby knew several others who had gone there too.  
"I never went to school so...well I did for elementary but that didn't go too well for me." Toby said.  
Masky was glancing through the files.  
She showed an expression of understanding and relief, "so they've probably have horror stories of their own about that place".  
She looked at Toby "don't worry it didn't go too well for me either that's why I got transferred"  
She remembered her first day at that sinister place. Meeting her first real friend and making her first sworn enemy and accidentally witnessed Horacio physically torture some poor kid. All at the ripe old age of 9 years old.  
Toby nodded.   
"Yeah. That school is absolutely ripe for producing people like, well..." He gestured around at the people in the town, "It's why where you live is such a hotspot for, well, paranormal activity as well as people like me." He explained.  
He didn't want to go into detail about his hellish elementary school days. He knew proxies who would watch that school day in and day out because of all the people that would just snap there.  
She looked at him. "I now see why you guys didn't decide to kill me... Makes sense I've always been able to see paranormal shit all my life from the time I could remember...I guess that I've always had some sort of potential"  
She gave a bitter laugh.  
"Who knew that my step dad would be proven wrong about me. The shit I saw and went through made me the survivor that I am today and I don't mean to undermine your hellish experience but to me that sounds like heaven compared to Rosewood. I wish I had your elementary experience"  
She hesitated for a minute before her expression turned dark, fearful and pained.  
"Are you aware of anyone named Horatio Galloway?" She asked quietly  
She held her bandaged left hand close to her.  
"Ha, well I mean if you define "heaven" as being relentlessly tormented by all your peers, having a hate club made about you, and being put in the hospital twice by kids older then you then I suppose so." Toby smiled.  
"Also, usually we kill people who are sensitive to the paranormal. Well, the people who work for my boss do."  
Toby was silent after being asked about the stranger.   
"I'm not, I'm sorry. Though someone else here might be aware of who he is."  
"I had all of that and more. I've been put in the hospital more times then I care to remember”, she physically flinched as she felt the phantom pain of her hand and the beatings of her step dad.  
"At least you didn't watch the only people who were the closest thing you had to a real family jump to their deaths one by one at the hands of Horatio. And there was nothing I could do about it", she went quiet.  
"I-I said too much. It's not really anyone else's business", she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully,   
"hm...if I die I at least will be with my friends again...hopefully" she sighed "that's fine...I'll get my revenge eventually...if I live long enough..."  
Toby nodded. He understood. He spoke.   
"My father liked to say that my sister died in a car crash. She was in one, that was true, but the reason it killed her was because of a head wound my father had given her. The car cr-a-ash-", he stopped and cleared his throat, "was simply just an excuse."  
“Dads aren’t shit”, she said as she playfully punched his arm gently with her right hand with a small smile.  
Toby understood what it was like to lose people. So did a lot of the folks here. They soon were heading up a steep hill towards a monolith of a mansion. It was beautiful, with sprawling gardens and marble columns. All three of the men quickened their steps towards the metal gate, which swung open to let the group in. It seemed that whoever or whatever was inside was expecting him. Toby figured Masky had let the boss know. All proxies could communicate telepathically with their boss. But only their boss.  
She almost forgot about her anxiety as she was talking to Toby. Her anxiety spiked up as she was about to receive her fate. She went back to wringing her shirt.  
"Its so strange...I might die at any minute now and I'm strangely okay with this. You know death was very real to be growing up. I knew I'll die any day now whether I'll do it myself or someone else would", she shook her head, "I just never expected my death to be like this. This turned out to be a longer night then expected"  
Toby patted her shoulder.  
She dodged his touch and then offered him an apologetic smile.  
“Sorry instincts”  
"I'll vouch for you." He said simply.  
“What if that’s not enough? What if I have to die anyways regardless?”,   
Hoodie led them up the stairs to a huge door, that also creaked open invitingly. The inside of the mansion was beautiful, with golden curtails, matching rugs, and wooden floors. Two people in matching masks and uniforms closed the door when Masky had stepped through. Without a word, they both gestured, at the same time, for the group to follow them.   
Tabby whistled and was impressed at her surroundings.  
"This is so much better than my apartment..."  
Toby glanced at Tabby.  
"Disgraced proxies." He explained, then mentioned he would explain everything later to her after the conversation with his boss.  
"Oh...", she nodded an okay as he said that he'll explain later. She sincerely hoped that she would be alive for the explanation.  
She made the sign of the cross and put her hands together in a silent prayer and followed them. She stood up straight with her hands to her sides and kept a neutral emotionless expression for first impressions.  
Toby understood. There wasn't much he could do for her except put in a good word for her. Masky looked like he had a bit of a headache. The two people in the pearly colored masks eventually led them to a heavy door. One of them pushed it open. This room was darker than the rest of the mansion. It was cold. Painting of landscapes hung on the walls. It seemed to be some sort of sitting room. In the corner, on a plush armchair, rested a tall imposing figure. As soon as Hoodie, Masky, and Toby entered the room, they approached the chair and kneeled. The proxies in the pearly masks kneeled right next to the door, allowing Tabby to go in. Tabby entered the room cautiously and looked around. Tabby didn't know what to do. She saw everyone else kneeling so she did the same too. Wincing at her bruises as she did. She looked down, not daring to speak or look up until she was spoken too.  
The room seemed to rumble as the figure in the chair spoke.  
"Masky...why have you brought this human here?", It was a smooth, but chilling voice.  
Masky remained kneeling, and addressed his creator.  
"Conflict in the group as to what to do with her, sir.", Masky said.  
The being chuckled coldly.  
"How silly. Why did you not just do away with her?" The being asked.  
Masky sighed, and responded.  
"Some in the group believe there is no purpose in killing her." He stated firmly.  
Toby was muttering something under his breath, over and over. "Cruel but fair, cruel but fair, cruel but fair-”  
There was only one thought in her mind, "is this really going to be the end of me?"  
That was when Toby stepped in.  
"Sir! Don't punish my teammates for what I did. They both wanted to kill her but I suggested bringing her to you! I figured she...that she could be useful, maybe. Even if you just let her go, sir."  
That’s when Tabby stepped in.  
"Now wait a minute! If anyone should be killed it's me!"  
She quickly turned to the being.  
"Sir with all due respect, I should be killed. I was the one who made the stupid decision to run away from home. I was stupid enough to stumble upon them doing their job. I never should have ran away in the first place. I was stupid enough to not run away from what I stumbled upon when I had the chance"   
she said more quietly, "sir please don't punish them for my own stupidity. It should be me and me alone. I'll take the full blow if I must and even if it includes death",she looked down.  
Toby looked at her in shock, hoodie sucked in a breath, and Masky sighed, facepalmed and shook his head.  
She realized her mistake but it was too late to take it back. The damage was done. She was sure for certain now that she'll definitely be killed now. She waited for the consequence.  
"Silence.", The figure said, waving his tentacles threateningly.  
"I hold these men to a higher standard than mere humans. However...", The being cocked his head. "I'll admit that usually the humans brought before me simply beg for their life. You did not, which...amuses me."  
“Oh...yeah I forgot about my own life for a minute there...uh….spare me? Please?”, she said awkwardly not really putting much effort into it.  
Toby perked up. She might just be spared.  
"You simply were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Normally, I would have you slaughtered anyways.", the being paused.  
The proxies remained kneeling. The Slenderman seemed to settle.  
"Since you have amused me, I'll put your fate in your own hands. You can choose to die, in which case I shall send you out with either Knot or Paene.", he gestured to the two proxies in the pearly masks, "Or, you could stay here, and see what we can make of you."  
"You mean if I choose to stay I can live and eventually get my revenge and a new life?", she asked in disbelief.  
She thought about it, "but if I stay I'll never see my mother or little brother again..." she then remembered that her mother and little brother were treated better than her. He would never beat them, only her.  
"They don't really need me...and I have nothing else to lose… and I have been asking for a second chance at life since I was 12..."   
She looked at the being making her final decision. As she said something that she didn’t believe, "I want to stay". Meaning that she wants to live.   
"Very well.", the powerful being said, and offered her his hand to shake. He could sense something in her that was...darker.  
Tabby gave him a firm handshake with her right hand to seal the deal.  
"You may stay with either Masky, Hoodie, or Toby.", the being said.  
"I'll stay with Toby", she quickly looked down. Her chances of surviving would greatly increase if she stuck to him for now. Besides he was nice to her and spared her life so she kinda owes him.  
Once she proved herself useful, she could have her own home. Until then, she needed a mentor and someone who could explain the new life she was given. The being nodded to Knot and Paene to show the group out. He actually had some business to attend to with Masky and Masky only, and it involved the files he had brought to him. The Slenderman nodded, and sent her, Hoodie, and Toby out while he spoke with Masky privately. Toby was happy to at least be able to help her adjust. He hoped she'd be able to make the cut. Even though he was new, he was still a decent proxy meaning the apartment he had had two rooms and enough space for them to live comfortably. Jane was their neighbor along with a few others Toby had never met. Tabby followed Toby closely; she was careful not to stare as she was Generally polite for the most part. She saw a doctor with stitches going across her. She made damn sure to avoid her since she didn't like doctors. She saw an eccentric child playing with LJ, the Doll maker and Jason the toy maker. She saw two boys arguing with each other that reminded her of an old married couple.  
Toby was thinking.   
"We can get Jane to make you a mask.", he said, "I think you might like her."   
Tabby looked offended, "what's wrong with my face? Is it because of my eyes?".  
She did have unnaturally wide eyes. She often got picked on for them. People called her wide-eyed, bugsy, googly eyes ect...  
"No, no it's nothing to do with your face!",Toby assured her, "It's just that people like us wear masks. It's kind of like our new identity. But any face covering works, really."  
They passed a haggard, tall, skeletal thing with long tangled black hair. The creature's limbs were covered with dirt, mud, blood, and other...things. It watched Toby and Tabby continue on, mouth ripped open and hanging near its collar bone. It stared with its yellow blank stare. They passed a tall man with broad shoulders, very attractive and charming-looking. He was holding a cat in his arms. He looked relatively normal. They finally made it to Toby's apartment building.  
She looked at the apartment complex, "it's a lot nicer than my old apartment..."  
She didn't look at the other people as she didn't want others to kill her. He led her into the lobby. The lobby was empty, save for a lady at the front desk. She looked normal, save for the fact she had no eyes and her mouth was stitched shut. She was doing paperwork. Toby didn't seem to mind.  
"Come on!", He said, a little excited to show her where she'd be staying.  
Tabby gave him a small smile and let him lead the way. Toby let her into his apartment. It was oddly clean despite being lived in by an 18 year old boy. The blinds were open. There were a few dishes on the sink but nothing too unclean. The walls were a light green with dark brown trim. It was a decent place. A little cat slept peacefully on the couch. It was quiet besides the humming.  
"Your room will be the door right next to the hall closet.", he stated, "My room is locked, so don't worry about getting into the wrong room."  
She nodded in understanding as she took in her surroundings. She dropped her backpack in a corner and slowly walked up to the cat cooing at it. Not daring to touch it until she gained its trust but it's evident that she has a soft spot for cats.  
"Your apartment is nice and it's relatively clean...I always had to play Cinderella at my old apartment", said Tabby.  
Toby smiled.   
"I just like being in clean spaces.", he said, not wanting to get into the reasons for that.  
He introduced the cat to her. The cat's name was Nugget.  
"She was a stray. I found her beating the crap out of some raccoon so I took her in. She's a real big baby."  
Nugget remained asleep, obviously unbothered by Tabby's presence.  
She nodded, "so do I. I have Bad OCD", she left it at that not wanting to get into the reasons for that.   
"Nugget is really cute. I love cats"  
"Well, lucky for you, Nugget loves sleeping in your room so you may wake up and find her next to you.",Toby said with a smile, "I'll give you some time to settle in.".  
"Okay" she picked her back pack up and went to her room.   
It looked the same as the rest of the place with the same colors just smaller. There was already another bed with a small bedside table and a small dresser with a mirror on it. She unpacked. She only had a week's worth of clothes for summer and winter and like 3 pairs of pjs. She put socks and underwear in one drawer, shirts in the next, pants in the next and then pjs in the next. She hung up the plain pale blue long sleeved dress that she had in the closet. She put her hygiene products and feminine products in her closet. Lastly she took out the two pictures that she had and put them on the nightstand. And she took out a couple of sketches that her best friend Autumn made for her. They were both of Tabby in different poses. She laid them on the bed. The bed was bare as there was no bedding on it. She'll buy frames for her pictures and bedding for her bed once she got money. She'll ask later if she could hang stuff up on the wall.  
Toby busied himself while she got settled into her new room. He had done the dishes from what he had managed to eat that day and checked on the food he had. He was running low, but thankfully he'd soon be paid for the mission with a bonus, as he was now training someone. Proxies got paid per mission, though it was always possible to get money on the side. The longer and more complex the mission, the more pay you'd get for it. Toby had finished cleaning up his mess in the kitchen and was looking over his mission schedule for that week. He had given Jane a call to let her know her services would soon be needed. He figured that a friendly female presence would help Tabby adjust to this place, and he knew the moment she had her mask was the moment she could go around The Pocket safely. Jane would make it to her liking. Toby knew that while he'd be the primary mentor, there were things he could not teach her and would need help with. He also knew that he needed to explain the rules.  
She sat on the bed and looked into the mirror and took a good long look at her reflection and took the time to process tonight's events. How fucking quickly her life changed from running away to becoming a proxy.  
"Wtf actually happened? How did I survive this?", she said out loud to herself.  
Toby knew his schedule was clear the next day. That would be good. He figured that they soon would need to get something to eat but Toby didn't feel it was a good idea for Tabby to go out too far without a mask. Not wearing a mask made you a target for the malus population, or even sometimes higher ranked monsters or other proxies. It was deemed unacceptable to not wear one unless on a stealth mission. Thankfully Tabby has bad social anxiety so it's unlikely that she'll ever venture out by herself. If anything she'll venture out if she had too only with another person with her.   
Toby knew that she would have to make friends to survive for long here. It was always best to have someone in your corner unless things went to crap. Thankfully Toby knew some decent people who could definitely help her out of her shell a tad and also would be loyal. She decided to leave Toby alone for now since she didn't want to get in his way and bother him. He knew where to get her if he needed her. She just flopped on the bed staring up at the ceiling. It's insomnia week so she's not going to sleep for a couple of days. Her anxiety died down and the adrenaline wore off.  
She talked quietly out loud to herself, "Alrighty ground rules. Don't speak unless spoken too. Only make eye contact for a little bit when someone is talking to you. Always be polite and respectful, fight if you have too, just keep your head low, stay out of the way and if someone asks you to do something quickly, quietly and efficiently".  
She nodded as she agreed with the rules that she made for herself. She gave herself a little pep talk.  
"I survived Rosewood for the last 8 years. I can survive here. This is no different from Rosewood only the steaks are higher. I can live with that. I'm sure there's a weapon store somewhere here. I can buy some weapons to defend myself with when I absolutely have to go alone". She took a deep breath "I'm finally going to do it Autumn...I'm going to avenge you and the others....just hold on"  
Toby knocked on her door, and let her know he was going out for groceries. He told her Jane would be over in about fifteen minutes to start working on a mask with her and asked her if she needed anything. He was planning on just making some simple food for dinner. Jane was a very talented mask maker, and Toby knew that she would do a good job with Tabby's. Toby had a bit of a flashback. When he was new, still slightly burned and bruised from the fire, he was sitting down on some stone steps outside a building and he was crying. He remembered feeling a tap on his shoulder and seeing Jane sitting next to him. She was ranked lower than he was, she had explained, so he could feel assured she wouldn't hurt him. He remembered her taking him back to her apartment and making him some food before showing him where he was supposed to go. Jane was an incredibly sweet person and was able to make people just open up to her. She did a lot of espionage missions and did a lot of work with stealth.  
Tabby opened up the door and nodded.  
"Do you think you can buy my two frames? About an 8 x 9? And at least two knives for me to defend myself when I absolutely have to go alone? And some bedding too?", she added quickly, "if you don't want too that's fine! I can wait until I get my own money! I don't need anything fancy! Just something sturdy and simple. And something warm. I don't want to be a burden on you. I can take care of myself! I don't want you to think I'm trying to take advantage of you! I'm actually really grateful!", she babbled on as she fidgeted with the bottom of her shirt and looked down prepared for the harsh comeback.  
"It's okay! I can get that for you. Any specific colors you want for the bedding and the frames or should I just get stuff that matches the room?", Toby asked.  
He had no problem providing her with stuff. She was a guest in his home and he would be a bad host if he didn't help her out. Plus she was in a new world with new rules that probably seemed a bit hellish. If he could help in any way he would be happy to.   
"Oh, and I'm grilling some chicken and making some salad for dinner. Is that okay or do you want me to bring you back something?", he asked.  
"Teal...I like the color teal...it's my favorite... as for the frames just simple black ones will do. No need to be fancy.", she added quietly.  
She listened to him when he said what he was making for dinner, “That's fine i'm not a picky eater. but I have to watch you make it because I don't trust anyone to make my food unless I'm watching or if I'm making it myself. It could be poisoned. No offense to you".  
It was common knowledge at Rosewood that you don't eat the school food as everyone's caught Horatio poisoning the food more times than not. So everyone brought their own lunch and the kitchen shut down.  
"Okay, that's fine with me.",Toby assured her, "You can even help me cook it if you want.".  
He understood. When he first got to the Pocket he was given to an older proxy to be trained to who called himself Demitrius. Toby had been training with a girl named Farrah. Demitrius despised them. He was so awful to them, which they both had to take as they were new. Then they had both started getting sicker and sicker. Farrah had found out that they were slowly being poisoned so they were both moved to different mentors. He didn't feel like explaining that however.  
"I'll make sure I'll get you what you need, okay?”, said Toby.  
She nodded as she sounded relieved, "Okay. I'm pretty good in the kitchen myself".  
As she's always had to cook dinner for the 5 of them, the people she lived with. On top of her working at the This or That restaurant.   
"Okay thank you", she ventured out to the living room as she sat down on the edge of the couch since he mentioned that a girl named Jane was coming over soon.  
"Okay, I'll see you.", Toby said with a smile. He turned and left the apartment with a list.  
Soon enough, the door slid open. The woman from earlier came into the apartment. She was tall, and wearing a very pretty painted mask and a wig. She had changed from the dress from earlier into a long sleeved t shirt and jeans.  
"Hey hon! I'm Jane.", the woman said with a kind voice.  
She quickly looked up at her, "hello my name is Tabby", she quickly looked back down again as she was fidgeting with her shirt again. She was covered in bruises and scars old and new. And her bandaged left hand was obvious.  
She stood up trying to be a good hostess, "would you like anything to drink? I'm sure we only have water here for now".  
Jane smiled and shook her head.  
"No thank you, I'm good.", she said.  
Jane noted her bruises, scars, and her hand. She gave her a smile.  
"I was asked to come here to discuss the type of mask you would like.", she said tentatively.  
"Hmm...I don't want anything too fancy as I don't want to drag attention to myself more than I already will since I'm fresh meat...and something of a teal color", she was thinking as she made room for Jane to sit if she wanted to.  
Jane sat next to her with a smile, "Hm, teal, that would look nice. You won't be fresh meat for long, but I understand wanting a plain mask. Maybe a golden design over the teal? That could look very pretty."  
Tabby nodded excitedly, "yeah! Like golden spirals in different directions"  
Jane nodded, "That could be pretty.", she sketched out a tentative design and showed it to her.  
"Yeah...", she just stared for a couple of minutes as she was having a flashback to when Autumn was alive. She was the artistic one in the group. And was also her best friend/big sister. She was always showing Tabby her sketches.   
She shook her head to clear away the memories  
"Like that", she confirmed.  
"Okay! Anything else? Would you like me to paint the lips, add any engravings, stuff like that?", Jane asked.  
She remembered one older proxy, about 40, who had lost his entire group in one mission. He had come to her and had her engrave their names on one side of his mask.  
She hesitated for a minute, "could you engrave 14 names in the inside of the mask? And paint the lips black please?".  
"Okay, lips black. Can you write out the names please?", Jane asked, handing her the sketchbook and a pencil. She would be more than happy to.  
Tabby took her sketch book and wrote down the names 'autumn, ora, Emma, hunter, gavin, donny, rebecca, Mitchell, Morgan, jewel, julie, Caleb, Riley, Emmy, and Daniel'. She handed back the sketch book.  
"Okay. I'll carve them on the inside of the mask.",She said.  
She figured those names carried sentimental value to Tabby.  
Tabby looked up, "thank you", and she looked down.  
Jane nodded, "I'll have it done by either tomorrow or the next day, okay?".  
Tabby nodded, "yes that's fine. Take all the time you need. I don't plan on going out anytime soon".  
"Of course. I'll get it ready.".  
"Okay then", Tabby wasn't really good at holding up conversations as she never really got too much socializing. Especially if it's a stranger.  
Jane smiled.  
"Would you like me to leave, or would you feel more comfortable with someone else in the apartment?", Jane asked with a smile.  
"Oh you can stay if you want if you're not busy", she won't admit it but she didn't want to be alone in this strange new world just yet.  
"I'm not all that busy. If I could bring some of my mask making stuff over here that would be great.", Jane said. She understood  
"Yeah that's fine. I'm sure Toby won't mind as long as there's no mess afterwards".  
"Oh I won't make a mess.", Jane said peacefully. She said she would be very fast.  
"Unbelievable", she said in thought, "I'm talking to a killer...I'm having an allyship with two of them so far", she shook her head, "my life really did take a drastic change"  
Jane went to her apartment and soon came back with all her supplies. She could get three of her orders done if she worked fast. Jane began to chat with Tabby as she set up.   
"So Tabby, you're very new, hm?".  
"Yeah my life turned into this in one night. I was honestly not expecting this to happen. Originally I was running away", admitted Tabby.  
Jane nodded. She understood. She began making the mold for one of the masks.  
"I understand. But this will be a pleasant change, you'll see.", Jane promised, "Revenge and whatnot is quite exhilarating”.  
She shook her head slowly, "I hope so. I'm just doing it because I know I can't die and go with my friends without avenging them while he is still out on the streets and in school. Someone else will suffer at his hands and I'll be damned if someone else has to suffer by the hands of him like I did", she said quietly.  
"I think I know who you're talking about.", Jane said,   
"And...if it's any consolation at all, ghosts do exist and several of them have contact with other dead folks. There may be a way to talk to your friends, albeit temporarily.", She set the mask cast to dry and made another one.  
"There's only one I would like to talk to one last time. I owe her everything after all she did for me", she said quietly. She then changed the subject.  
"Toby said that you also went to Rosewood Prep".  
"He's right. I used to. I still have human contacts in there.", Jane said. She set a fan on the first mask as she finished the second one.  
"So how long ago was that? What was it like? Was it still the same students who were just as corrupt as the teachers? Was it like the hunger games where you had to be on guard and fight every day to survive only with more rules and regulations? What horror stories do you have of that place?", she asked excitedly. She never met anyone who lived long enough to get out of Rosewood. Normally the people who do got the fuck out the first chance they got and were never really heard from ever again.  
"I was there two years ago, actually. I'm still pretty new here myself. I...I have a lot of stories.", Jane said.  
She shifted anxiously, "I once got caught stealing food from the kitchen, and they locked me in the sports shed for almost a week. They poured water on the ground for me every day and I had to lick it up from the ground. Teachers would have favorite kids and that would keep them out of trouble. Rich kids were treated much better. Anyone who made lower than a C on anything was punished. Sometimes they would lock kids who were hallucinating in the upstairs bathroom and just leave them there. I have so many."  
"Horatio Galloway" Tabby’s face paled and her eyes were wide in fear, "most of my horror stories had to do with him" "rarely did I ever get into trouble with the teachers. I was always a straight A student. It's only when I got into trouble for skipping classes because of Horatio".  
"I think I remember him.",Jane said, "I didn't get in as much trouble with him ever. I did okay in my schooling but I was rebellious.". Jane set the second mask to the side, and started on another.  
"It was probably a good thing that you've gotten punished for stealing the food. It was probably poisoned by him. I'd rather be locked in the sports shed than have a slow death", pointed out Tabby.  
"It was before the food was prepared. I wasn't stupid. I took fruits and veggies and unopened pre packaged things. They were denying a friend of mine food. I got caught after she got to eat.", Jane spoke with some pride.  
"Good for you", Tabby said proudly.  
Tabby then looked down and her voice quivered, "then you must be aware of the Rosewood massacre that happened a month back", She rubbed her left hand.  
Jane's eyes darkened, "I heard rumors about the massacre but don't know the details. Several of my friends are still there...".  
"I can tell you the real full story. The massacre as they called it really did happen. I saw it with my own eyes but being the person that Horatio is he made damn sure that I couldn't do a damn thing about it", she gave a bitter laugh,”always had it out for me since day 1".  
Jane looked sadly at her.  
"I'm so sorry you had to be there.", Jane said softly she began to paint the first mask, a pretty lavender mask, "Talk about it only if you would like to."  
She sighed and thought about it for a while. She's never talked to anyone about this.  
"It...was homecoming...you know at Rosewood how each homecoming is a different theme every year. This year was carnival themed. Which I don't like as it is because I have a severe distrust of clowns. Too many horror movies growing up you know? Anyways my mom decided to let me go to the event and she and my grandmother came with me. That was the catch. Horacio was standing at the entrance dressed as the ringleader handing out pink candies that were laced with LSD to everyone. You should know at Rosewood it is common knowledge that you do not take anything that Horacio gives you. Whatever it may be. I didn't take the candy because I knew better. I tried warning my mom and grandmother about it but they wouldn't listen. I was too smart for his bullshit but not smart enough. I couldn't find my friend group anywhere. But I knew that they were here so I didn't worry about it too much and I'll find them later. So I got to the seats and watched the show which was quite boring since I wasn't hallucinating from the candy. But the last act though. It was outside. I saw all my friends lined up on the rooftop of the school and it's a fucking tall building. while everyone was thinking that they were doing some acrobatic tricks i watched them jump to their deaths one by one....i was screaming and crying begging someone to help but all ignored me and i couldn't shout because they were too far up hear me and I couldn't break into the school either. i couldn't do anything. later on the LSD wore off and they were mortified to find the 14 dead bodies. all confused on how it happened. So they deemed it the Rosewood Massacre. After the show was over I confronted Horacio about what he did. I attacked him to strangle him. My goal was to kill him. but the problem was that we're too evenly matched with each other. in strength and intelligence so it turned out to be a fist fight. we did a good amount of damage to each other. until he caught one of my punches and shoved my fist through a closed window shattering the window and every bone in my hand. i had to get the glass surgically removed as it was deep in the tissue so i can't feel a thing in my hand anymore and they had to set my hand for the broken bones to heal. But since doctors refused to do their jobs correctly they set it wrong so it healed wrong and now my hand is paralyzed. he took everything away from me! My family! My home! My motivation to live then! and my hand!", she was more hurt than angry.  
Tabby quickly looked away to recompose herself, "I'm sorry for the sudden outburst. I never talked about that day since to anyone before".  
"I understand.",Jane said softly. She had been letting the lavender mask dry so she could paint flowers on it and had been working on the second one, listening to the subject.  
"I'm so sorry.", Jane said softly, "I understand what it's like to lose everyone. A lot of the teachers at that school were just plain cruel, and I still don't know how and why the human government hasn't shut down that institution or why parents won't stop sending their children there. No one deserves to lose people the way you did."   
"That's because the shit they do there is unbelievable. No one would believe them if others heard their stories. I don't know about your parents but mine didn't believe me either and neither did my therapists", explained Tabby.  
The second mask was a half white and half black one.   
"We can get you an appointment with the Puppeteer perhaps. He can just drain your sadness away." The Puppeteer was highly sought after for his empath abilities. It comes back after a while unless he numbs your memory, but it's nice to feel peace just for a little while."  
She shook her no.  
"No thank you. I don't like my mind being tampered with. I've been through 7 psychologists. I don't need anyone else. My sadness, anger and grief is my motivation to put Horacio Down once and for all. I can have peace of mind after that", said Tabby.  
"I understand. He doesn't tamper with your mind though. He feeds in negative emotions so you can at least get a bit of sleep and have a moment where everything feels okay. And you're right. My parents didn't believe me either. All my letters were monitored as I lived in the boarding section.", Jane said, "My parents didn't believe in therapy, so."  
She finished up the first mask. It looked lovely and glossy.  
"As much as that sounds nice. I can't sleep even if I wanted too. I have insomnia and narcolepsy. So it's a hit or miss", explained Tabby. "I've heard horror stories about the boarding section. I guess I was considered lucky enough to be able to go back to the place where I lived".  
"Oh, he can deal with that too.", Jane said, "He's honestly a blessing. And yeah. The boarding rooms were awful.", She didn't want to go into too much detail.  
"Maybe I'll think about it" , she nodded in understanding. She learned in order to keep a friend you don't push boundaries and you don't ask too many questions.  
"So Tabby. What do you do for fun?", asked Jane, changing the subject.  
"Fun?" she asked, confused. She had to sneak around after school or at night in order to have some fun as her step dad was a cruel and strict man.  
"I normally like to read and write, have time to myself to philosophize. I liked to hang out with my friends whenever I could. Listen to music”, Tabby finally said.  
"Ah, I see." Jane said. "Those are fun hobbies. What do you like to write?" She asked. She had stenciled out a white design for the black side of the mask and mirrored that design in black for the white side. The third mask was hardening.  
"I like to write fiction. Darkly realistic fiction. Sometimes free verse poetry", Tabby said.  
"Oh, that seems fun." Jane said, continuing her work on the masks. She checked the little black clock up on the wall. "Toby will be home soon."  
"Yeah. Although I left all my written works back at Rosewood. I didn't think to bring them back to the place where I lived. I didn't exactly plan on running away. It was a spur of the moment type thing you know?", she nodded, "I'm not too worried about him. He seems like he's the type that can handle himself"  
"Ah, I understand. Maybe you could get Toby to get you some notebooks or something to write in." Jane said. "And you're right, he most definitely can. He's pretty strong."  
"Maybe and that's good I guess"  
Jane finished up the second mask and began working on the third. She looked like she was thinking.   
"Has Toby told you the rules yet?", Jane asked.  
She shook her head no, "I know that there are rules and guidelines. I figured I would ask him later when he got back”  
"Ah. Well, if you'd like, I could start filling you in." Jane offered.  
"That would help out a lot. The more I know the less of a chance I have of being killed", said Tabby.  
"Okay. I'll tell you a few of the official rules then." Jane said, adjusting her position and making sure her mask was secure. "First of all, there is a hierarchy here that is absolutely set in stone. Since you're a proxy, you're lower in the hierarchy, but you are not the lowest of the low."  
"Sounds like my position in any life in general but okay what else?" She asked  
"It's best to try to consort with your rank and above. So for you, that would be other proxies and monsters. The higher beings are not likely to befriend you so I wouldn't bother." Jane explained.  
"So like you and Toby for example?”, asked Tabby.  
"Not me, actually. Toby flaunts a few of the rules because he's popular. I am actually one of the lowest in the hierarchy." Jane said with an awkward nod. "It's not like you'd be punished for speaking with me or anything like that. People would just look down their noses a bit at you."  
"That's nothing new to me. I can live with that. Who would be my best chance to make an ally with, the higher proxies I mean?"  
"Hm. If you want high-ranking proxies that are pretty friendly, then believe it or not, Masky would be your go to guy. If he's not trying to kill you, he's very pleasant. Clockwork is another proxy I would chat with if I were you. She runs that little bar a couple minutes from here. Kate's not high ranking, but she can pull you a lot of favors because she knows people. There are a few monsters who don't care too much about the hierarchy either.”  
"He was trying to earlier. If it wasn't for Toby I would mostly likely be dead in the woods. I'm avoiding him for a while. I could give Clockwork and Kate a chance once my social anxiety dies down and when I get the courage to go out on my own willingly. Anything else that I need to know?"  
Jane nodded. "Yes. Relationships with humans that aren't mission-related or cleared by your boss as allies is VERY against the rules. It will get you put down to my level."  
Tabby nodded slowly "well I'm too fucked up for a relationship. I'm sure no one would want me anyways...The man I loved is dead now. No one will replace him. So I can have allies but it has to be cleared by the boss first?"  
"Yes. By allies I mean humans who are aware of our world and have chosen to side with us." She was painting what looked like a galaxy on the third mask. And I would be careful. You may find someone and it may shock you. I didn't expect-" Jane stopped then continued painting in silence.  
"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I'm not the one to push boundaries. And that makes sense. What else do I need to know?”, asked Tabby.  
"Treat all gifts with suspicion. Even if they're from people you know. There are a lot of backstabbers here."  
"I'm highly intuitive and I have serious trust issues. I don't trust anybody or anything. Unless I see them making it or doing something with my own eyes. I've already came up with the conclusion that this is no different from Rosewood. Except the stakes are higher and I have more freedom for the most part. If we survived Rosewood for that long we can survive here". What else?"  
"You'll find that this may be a bit tougher than Rosewood, mainly due to the missions. This is a very high stakes job. Many proxies die young. But it is also so rewarding too, really. Cause once you root yourself here, you've got some people that have your back."  
"Well then I guess I'll have to do my best not to die. I'll try to keep myself alive for as long as possible. Is there anyone I I shook steer clear away from? Like a red flag warning?”  
"Jeff." Jane said firmly. "Ignore him. Don't do favors for him and don't let him do favors for you. Ever." Her hands remained steady even if she was freaking out.  
"Is Jeff to you like Horacio was for me?" She asked quietly. "I'm good at ignoring people. I ignore people like they are the plague. I'm antisocial af"  
"Well, he set me on fire and murdered my family in front of me, so yeah, I'd say so." Jane said. She said it in a way to make it seem like it didn't hurt her but it was easy to tell that it did.  
"Horatio can't get me here...can he?" Her voice quivered and her eyes were wide with fear.  
"Horatio is just a measly little human." Jane said.   
"After you're trained and fully transformed, he won't really be able to harm you on his own. You could absolutely humiliate him.  
"But he's always been 10 steps ahead of me...I couldn't even get close enough to kill him and believe me I've tried countless times...what if he's still 10 steps ahead of me after I transformed? All my efforts would be in vain"  
"He won't be. Like I said. He's just a stupid human. You will be able to get rid of him with no sweat."  
She sighed the problem with Horatio was that she and him were too evenly matched. In intelligence and strength. She just uses her intelligence differently than he did.  
"I'm sorry for what you went through...including the stuff with Rosewood. I really am. What else do I need to know?", asked Tabby, changing the subject.  
“It's fine. I'm coping okay. You should probably know that the ghost community is a great community to be friends with." Jane admitted. "They're everywhere and they can get into places for you."  
She nodded "I'll try talking to them at some point”  
"I can easily introduce you to almost anyone you'll need to know. When you finish training, you'll be put into a group."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Proxies work in groups. Usually. You'll be given missions to do either solo, with some members of your group, or your whole group. They will be the people you can trust most."  
She nodded in understanding "Toby said something earlier about disgraced proxies. What are those?”  
"People like me. Other people call us honorary humans, or just disgraces. They are proxies or monsters who have broken some of the cardinal rules and were caught and punished for them."  
She nodded in understanding, taking in the information "is there anything else I should know?"  
."Not really much that I can think of right now."  
"Okay thank you for taking the time and effort to explain things to me. I'll take your advice. I'll ask Toby if there's anything else I should know when he gets here and see what advice he has. I'd like to hear what he has to say"  
"You should. I'm just telling you things I know from experience." Jane said. She heard footsteps outside the room.  
Tabby froze as her ears picked up on the noise. She got defensive ready to attack or bolt. Toby, carrying everything he had bought at the grocery store in his arms and a basket. Jane got up to help him unload it all. Tabby sighed in relief and she got up to help too. Her mom made her carry 4-5 heavy bags in each hand every time they went grocery shopping. She may be small but she definitely has some lean muscle to her. She's still useful despite her left hand. Toby thanked both of them. He set down the bags of food on the counter and handed the things that Tabby had specifically requested to her. Jane had gone to start packing up her stuff after putting some things away. She knew that she probably needed to go now. Tabby went to her room to put down the bags. She'll take them out later once everything settles down. She went back out to help Jane pack up.  
Jane pretty much had everything packed up and ready to go.  
"I'll swing by tomorrow with your mask." She assured Tabby  
"Okay. It was nice meeting you and having you here. It's nice to know I'm not alone with Rosewood"  
"You're definitely not alone. If you need someone to talk with who's not, well, a man-" Jane smiled a bit.   
"Then just give me a call or drop by. I literally live next door."  
She laughed. She gave herself a weird look. It was a sound that she hadn't heard in a long time. She only reserved it for Adam or her friends. "Well that's convenient then!"  
Jane nodded and smiled. It was nice to hear her laugh. Toby's voice came from the kitchen.   
"Thanks for coming, Jane!" Jane smiled at Tabby and waved goodbye  
Tabby gave a small wave goodbye. Jane left the apartment. Toby poked his head in and let Tabby know he was going to start cooking now if she felt she needed to make sure her food was safe. Tabby nodded and she went in to help cook the food while keeping a close eye on Toby to make sure he didn't try anything with the food. Despite her hand she was actually very handy with a knife (cooking wise and also fighting wise). She was very fast and efficient in the kitchen. She was using her wrist to hold some of the vegetables in place as she cut them. On top of always cooking dinner at home for 5 people she also worked in a kitchen at a small restaurant afterschool. It got her out of the house for a while since she never wanted to go home. She only quit last month due to her hand. Honestly she would have become a chef if she never made the choice to come here. Toby made sure she saw and knew what was going on with the chicken he was cooking. If he added a spice, he told her what it was. He admired how skilled she was with a knife even though one of her hands was essentially crippled. He could tell she had experience. That was good to know. Most of the killers couldn't cook. Jane always ended up burning everything so he always offered her food. The neighbors next door, however, were excellent cooks but since they were literally a family unit, Toby never really spoke to them. He knew that monsters and proxies would sometimes settle down and start families but he never really met them. Most families got moved to another part of town. But she was the type of person to go through with her choice when she made one whether it was good or bad. She would see it through to the bitter end crash and burn. That was the most dangerous thing about Tabby.  
She liked how Toby respected her wishes and went out of his way to tell her what the spices were. She never really had a lot of respect in her life so it was a nice change. She liked how the moved well together in the kitchen. It almost reminded her of those types of families she saw on tv that the husband and wife would help each other in the kitchen. The thought made her look down and blush a little.  
Moving on. She was thinking about the irony of her situation. She hated all adults she didn't know in general specifically males in particular. And here she was living with an adult serial killer and a Male nevertheless. The situation made her burst out laughing out of nowhere.  
"Jesus...unbelievable...", she said, wheezing for breath.  
Toby glanced over at her.  
"Hey, you okay?" He asked.  
He had ticked a bit in the middle of the "okay" but it hadn't really affected his speech. He figured she might have gotten herself with the knife a bit. But then why would she be laughing? Hm. The chicken was almost done. After dinner he would go out to check his mail to make absolutely sure he had no bills to pay or no missions he had neglected to see. He could hear faintly next door a baby crying. He heard footsteps, a small creaking sound, and some shushing. Soon the baby quieted. Toby smiled to himself. The people next door never let their baby cry for too long. They were very considerate neighbors.   
She calmed down a little bit, wiping her tears away from laughing as she was still giggling.  
"I'm fine. I'm not hurt. Even if I did get myself with the knife I wouldn't feel it because I used to work in a kitchen so my hands are pretty calloused".  
She showed him her left arm that had a crescent shaped burn mark on her bicep.  
"That's from work. I didn't realize it until two hours later when my arm was feeling irritated. So I looked down and saw a burn mark about 2 inches and a half in diameter. It eventually died down and became this. I was laughing because I realized the irony of my situation. You see I never really trusted adults in general. They don't do their jobs protecting their own kids. But if you're male you have a higher chance of me not trusting you. And here I am living with a technical adult male serial killer! I don't think you understand. I went against everything I knew and believed in one night. I took a leap of faith and I don't do that for just anyone so you better feel special”, Tabby explained.  
She smiled and shook her head, "my life really did take a drastic turn of events".  
Toby nodded. He understood. He offered her a small smile.  
"Well, I'm glad you did decide to take a leap of faith." He said earnestly.  
He plated up the chicken, then asked if she needed help with finishing up the salads. He heard faint music from Jane's apartment. The baby next door didn't start crying again. It was, for once, pretty peaceful. It was impossible to hear outside while the windows were closed, but if they were open it would be highly probable they would hear screaming.  
She shook her head no, "the salad will be done in a few minutes. I just needed to put the vegetables in and toss it" she did that and tossed it using a chef's flip without utensils mixing it good. The salad is done”.  
She plated the salad on both of their plates. She sat down and waited for him to sit to begin eating. Toby sat across from her with his plate. He was starving. He had gotten himself a knife and fork, and had gotten some for Tabby as well. He asked her if she wanted anything to drink. He had water, soda, and juice. No milk. He was lactose intolerant.  
"I would like some water please"  
Her expression changed to a more serious one as she was going to get down to serious business.  
"So Jane told me the basics of the rules. Like how there is a hierarchy. We're proxies so we're low but not the lowest of the low. How allyships between us and humans and humans not from here are strictly prohibited. It's best to have a few higher up proxies as allies. And that I should stay away from Jeff" "but I want to hear what you have to say. Like anything else I should really know? Anyone I should stay clear away from?"  
Toby went up to get them both some water.  
"She's right. She covered almost everything. Especially about Jeff, though if you get on his good side he can teach you some pretty cool stuff. I think it's important to know higher being politics as well. Proxies have a specific boss. Monsters can serve whoever they want and do jobs for whoever. But it's important to know which higher being hates who, because sometimes they will act out against the proxies that serve that higher being."  
She nodded slowly in understanding "I'm fairly observant so I'm sure I'll pick up a few things on higher being politics here".  
"is there anyone who you think I should stay away from personally?" She said in between bites. She was scarfing down her food like she wouldn't see food again. She didn't eat much in general for the last 8 years due to Rosewood. You had to bring your own lunch and her family was too poor to buy extra food. So she ate dinner at home and that was the only meal she would eat. They barely had enough food for the month while struggling for rent. Although when she was very young she could eat like a champ. For the last 3 months when her step dad came up with the cruel and unusual punishment for her to eat nothing but rice. But she got sick of it and she either stole a little bit of food from the stores when her mom used to send her out or Autumn was very generous and brought her some food for her own house.  
"I'm also not too fond of Jeff. But I also wouldn't trust LJ either. But he's friends with BEN and The Puppeteer so you can't really avoid him." The ghost community was super tight.  
"Is there enough for seconds?", she asked.  
"Yeah. There's enough for seconds if you'd like."  
"I don't trust clowns either. I watched too many horror movies as a child you know? But I'll be wary and cautious like I usually am with everyone and everything else" she got up for seconds and scarfed down her second and third plate. It wasn't until her fourth plate when she stopped.  
By then the entire thing of food Toby had cooked was gone. He didn't mind one bit however. He got up to do the dishes.  
"Yeah, don't trust clowns. They aren't...they aren't all that great. Especially here."  
"They're never in general". She went to help with the dishes while drying them. "Thank you" she said quietly after a period of silence.  
"No problem." Toby said with a smile. He helped put the dishes away after they were finished. He heard a meow and saw Nugget plodding towards them.  
Tabbys face lit up as she started cooing at the cat and kneeled down to pet Nugget. She sucked in a breath at the pain of her bruises. She started petting the cat affectionately.  
Nugget purred and pressed her body up against Tabby, her tail indicating that she was pleased with this. Toby smiled.  
"I think there's a scrap of chicken on the table. Hold on."  
"I mean if you give it food you have a higher chance of befriending the animal. It works with me”  
Toby laughed and picked up some scraps of chicken from the counter. He offered them to Tabby so she could feed the cat. Tabby took some. She ate a piece herself and feed the rest of the scraps to Nugget one by one. Nugget seemed to enjoy the chicken. Her purring was very loud as she ate it. Toby watched from afar with a smile.  
"Is there a library around here?"  
"Yeah, there is. I could take you there." Toby offered.  
"Good. If you're not busy tomorrow that is. I would much rather have someone to come with me to show me around and I'm not taking the chance of dying on my first day out since I'm fresh meat as it is so curious about the new girl that it is inevitable to say the least. Two is better than one. "I would also like to get books on this place and plants and stuff so I can have a lesser chance of dying and not being afraid. A wise man once told me that you can't be afraid of something that you understand. Like being afraid of the dark for example" she babbled.  
"Sure thing." Toby said, "I don't have any missions tomorrow and your training schedule hasn't been sent yet. Books will be good and all but talking to other people about stuff here will make it much easier to learn. Like, you can read all you'd like about the poison daisy, but field experience with someone who knows much more about it will be helpful. Also, we still have to teach you how to fight properly and other things that will make you more successful. It will come much easier to you once you fully transform though."  
"Okay. And I know that there's only something you can learn from experience. I just want to learn all I can from books first. The rest I'll ask around and experience for myself and what do you mean "properly"? Are you saying I can't fight. I may be crippled but that doesn't mean I can't kick some ass one handedly! I'll have you know I've gotten into a lot of fights and I've won the majority of them. Well despite getting my ass kicked many times before..."  
"I understand." Toby said to her first comment. He wanted her to learn as much as she could from books first too, it would keep her from being gullible and from getting hurt badly.  
"I'm not saying you can't fight, I'm saying that you're living with people who fight and hurt for a living. You've won fights, sure, but that's against humans." Toby finished cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. "It isn't a smart idea to overestimate your own abilities here. Really. The people here are stronger than humans, are faster than humans, can take more damage than humans, some have literal magic powers, or extra limbs, or whatever. "  
She sighed in defeat.  
"That's true. This isn't Rosewood. I'm not up against people my own age who are equal in intelligence and strength and skills. This isn't my territory. But I'll adapt and overcome like everything else in my life so far. I'm a quick learner. Just one day at a time that's all", said Tabby tiredly.  
"I know. That will help you live." Toby said. He sighed, then smiled.  
"Don't worry. We can train you. We can also get the WPA to train you so you're specialized if you want." Toby said.  
"What's WPA?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.  
"The Women's Proxy Association." Toby said.   
"They're a group of specialized fighters that ensure the training of female proxies. They're badasses. They're kind of like Amazons, if you want the human equivalent.”  
"Oh...that sounds like something I'd be interested in..." she was still tilting her head but smiled up at him.  
"Oh and another thing. If we're going to be living together for a while we need to establish ground rules. I only have two. One, please don't lie to me. I give you the common courtesy to give honest information. I would also like to be hurt with the truth instead of living a lie. If we're going to be working together in some way we're going to need some form of honest communication. Two, please don't fight my battles for me. I don't like other people suffering from my own stupidity and I know in this society that's just the way shit goes around here but I'll do my best to minimize that when someone's with me. I can and will take care of myself. If someone has a problem with me it's with me alone and nobody else okay? Does that sound reasonable to you?".  
Toby nodded. "Yeah. That sounds good. I don't really have any ground rules for myself at the moment, but I'll let you know.  
He was pretty honest for a proxy, and while he wasn't the type to let people he cared for get beat up, he understood how she would want to stand up for herself. It was good she had that drive to stick up for herself. Proxies who didn't have that usually ended up dead.  
"So what do you want to do now?", Tabby asked.  
"Well, seeing is it's kinda late, we should probably get some sleep." Toby said. "Well, you should. I have another small mission tonight but it shouldn't take too long."  
"Ah well you see I have insomnia...and narcolepsy so I don't ever get enough sleep. This is a week and a half of no sleep. But I'll be here when you get back. Try not to die okay?" She gave him a small smile. Which was code for 'be careful I care somewhat’.  
"I won't, it's a fairly riskless mission." Toby assured her. It really wasn't too bad of a mission. "It's just a delivery." Toby got up to leave. "There's sleeping pills in the hall closet if you'd like. They've got the power of like, horse tranquilizers."  
"Alright I'll think about it and I'll see you later"  
"Alright, I'll see you." Toby soon left.  
Tabby went to her room to unpack the bags that Toby had bought her. She took out the frames and gently slid both pictures into their frames and set them on her night stand. She took out the two knives and positioned them like she was about to get into a fight. They were good for defense. Tabby took out the bedding; it was a soft patchwork blanket with a teal color scheme and pillows to match. She positioned them just how she liked them. She decided to not hang up Autumn's artwork so she put them in her nightstand and deemed that it would be private and personal.  
Toby slipped through the shadows, the package in hand. He realized the quickest route would be through monster's only territory, but as long as he wasn't caught he would be fine. He darted through the trees, paying close attention to any noise he would hear. He eventually managed to pass through it unharmed, which made the bulk of his journey a lot easier.  
She stepped back until she was near the door to take a look at her room. It was simple and basic but you could tell that it was her room. Then she came across the dawning realization "like it or not this is home now". Home. That was a place she hasn't had in a long time. Sure she lived with her mother and two brothers and her step dad. But it wasn't considered home or a family. Tabby knew that a home is where you feel safe and you belong and a family accepts you for you broken or not. Tabby shook her head.  
"This isn't home. I mean I'm living in this world now so I guess this world is my home now but this place isn't. It's not my territory and I barely even know him" she talked out loud to herself.  
Toby walked down streets that were covered in multicolor slick, which was essentially the water in this dimension. He carried the package in his gloved hands. Even through his mask, he could smell something cooking. He knocked on a heavy dark door. It swung open almost immediately. He gritted his teeth as cigarette smoke permeated the air. It reeked. The man standing before him was tall, and horrendously burned. The tales told about him said that his skin had been bleached, and that was partially the case. However most of his skin was mottled and scarred with varying shades of red. His face was barely distinguishable as a face. The eyes were sunken and shriveled. The nose was covered in scars. His mouth was clumsily cut into a wide, oozing grin. The man seemed to sniff the air. He clicked his tongue.  
"Ah. Twinkle Toes. Nice to...hehe... see you."   
"Hey Jeff." Toby said uncomfortably. "Is Barb here? She told me to bring her this." He held up the small package. Jeff clicked his tongue again. He felt the package with his marred hand while seeming to stare directly at Toby.   
"Yeah, Barb's here. You can come in.”  
Her eyes widened in paranoia as that was kicking in now "how much did I tell him really? He isn't stupid so I'm sure he picked up on more than what I told him...wait let's see...I told him about my insomnia, narcolepsy, anxiety and OCD, I told him about Rosewood, I told him about Horacio, he already figured out I came from an abusive home...", she counted on her fingers. Several things. Not bad. Nothing too personal, just observations and bare basic surface. She sighed in relief. But her paranoia was still there.   
"why did he spare my life? Me out of everyone else that could have stumbled across tonight? On top of that, why is he so nice? I mean I appreciate it but No one is this nice for free. Accept for Autumn but we were kids then and we didn't really know anything. What if he's trying to gain my trust just to catch me off guard to kill me later? Especially in my sleep...what if he has other motives? I can't trust him nor am I going too. I'll work well with him and I'll be nice and kind back because it's right. But trust seems to be a long shot...", she rubbed the bridge of her nose like she had a headache. She hated when her paranoia showed up.   
"Goddamn Rosewood" she muttered to herself. She got out of her room to pace around the apartment to think out loud.  
"However he did save my life...if it wasn't for him I would have probably gotten my death wish early...and he did take me in for now...so like with Autumn I kinda owe him everything"   
She shook her head "I am thankful for all he's done for me so far...but I can not and will not care too much. It's like Jane said a proxies life isn't that long on average....I don't want to hurt him and have his efforts of keeping me alive to be in vain...that's not fair to him. I'll have allies but no friends. All my friends are dead and they can not and will not be replaced. Moving on means forgetting and I promised myself that I wouldn't forget them" but she knew that deep down inside that wasn't the real reason.  
"I can't have what happened at Rosewood happen to anyone else that I've become allies with...I don't want to get attached and go through that heartache again...while I'm still going through it..." she admitted quietly to herself.  
Toby didn't have much of a choice as Jeff pulled him into the building. The cigarette smoke only got stronger. But thankfully, he heard Barb's laugh from the upstairs, so he made his way up the creaky staircase. That's where he found her. Barb was around eight feet tall, and had four muscular arms. She had a sharp jaw and broad shoulders as well as long dark blue hair. She had fur the same shade as her hair coating her arms and legs. She had a tattoo gun, and was tattooing another monster. It was a pretty large and complex tattoo, but Barb had a lot of the skill to make it look nice. She turned when she heard Toby.  
"Hey Tobes!" She said in her loud, booming voice. She extended a hand that wasn't being used. "You brought the pills?"  
"Yeah, EJ gave them to me earlier." Toby said, passing them to her. Barb smiled, showing sharp teeth.  
"Thank you!" She boomed jovially. The monster getting tattooed, a tiny wisp of a woman with eyes all over her face and arms had all her eyes trained on Toby. It made him very uncomfortable.  
"Well, I should probably go-" Toby said.  
She looked around and it was too quiet to her liking.  
"On second thought those sleeping pills sound nice right about now" she mused to herself.   
She went to the closet and grabbed the bottle and read it carefully to make sure they were sleeping pills. She opened up the bottle and only took one since Toby said that they have the power of a horse tranquilizer and she's...well...small. She popped the pill dry and took some clean bandages that she found and a hand towel. She would clean her crippled hand and dress it in new bandages so it doesn't get infected since the surgical incisions were still fairly new. She went to the bathroom to wash her hands with soap and water and patted her crippled hand dry and wrapped it in new bandages.  
After she was done she could feel the pill kicking in. So she went back to her room. She locked her door and was debating on whether or not to move her dresser to barricade the door just in case he or someone else were to break in and attempt to kill her in her sleep. Since when she actually goes to sleep she's a deep sleeper. But she decided against it since she was too lazy and it would be a hassle to move it out of the way if she needed to escape immediately. She took her two knives and curled up laying down on her bed with her back facing the corner. She normally didn't sleep with covers on as they were a hassle to get off is someone were to attack her. She had her knees pulled up to her stomach for protection and her arms crossed to protect her chest and neck. She had both knives in each hand that laid against the back of her neck too for protection. No one was going to attack her easily. It was the only way she could feel safe while sleeping. And pretty soon she was out like a light.  
Toby eventually got back to the apartment. Jeff had wanted to show him something, which he knew wouldn't have ended well. He made sure to lock the apartment door behind him. It was quiet. Nugget was probably in Tabby's room. Toby peeked in her room to check on her and saw that she was asleep. Nugget was on her bed. After making sure she was okay, he closed the door and went to go take a shower and get ready for bed. He was pretty tired. He had run into Masky on his way back who managed to get him to share a drink and talk for a bit, which Toby found nice. Masky was in a much better mood today than other days. His shower and clothes change was quick. He put his dirty clothes into the hamper. He took it down to wash his clothes twice a week. The apartment had a shared laundromat.  
Tabby stirred awake as Toby closed the door   
"son of a bitch" she thought to herself.   
She wasn't protected enough. But even in her sleepy state she could recognize that it's Toby so she had nothing to worry about that much but for once in her life she was just too damn tired to do or say anything about it.   
"I'll deal with it in the morning" she grumbled to herself and went back to being dead asleep in her protective position.  
Toby was in his pjs. He went to the kitchen and got a glass of ice water before heading back into his room. He closed his door behind him. He sat on his own bed and turned on a fan. He liked it cold in his room. He had a small little radio next to his bed that he used to play soothing music or sometimes just audiobooks or things like that. Soon he managed to sink off into a deep sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Day 1 for Tabby in her new life as a proxy. So many people to meet and so many things to do and know. This day will turn out longer than expected when an unexpected situation comes up. What will Tabby, Toby, and Jane do when the opportunity presents itself?

Tabby was always an early bird due to her stepdad getting her up at 5 in the morning. Also, with Rosewood starting at 7:45 am. But she slept through until 7-8 in the morning. Tabby woke up and stretched and winced at her bruises. She slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes, confused. This wasn't her house. This wasn't her room...then last night's events came rushing back to her. 

"So it wasn't a dream after all... and I'm alive...I survived my first night in this strange new world. One day down and another one to go," she said in thought. She grinned as the new reality set in.   
"I'm free...of my stepdad, Rosewood, and Horacio!" She said in thought. Also, she let out a quiet giggle to herself. 

She got out of the bed and put her knives on the nightstand for now. She took a good look at herself in the mirror. Her red-brown hair turned into a messy low ponytail with a couple of wavy strands that were out. That was due to the tossing and turning in her sleep. She still had dark circles under her eyes, and they even appeared to be sunken back slightly. But they had that spark of life back in them again. But you can never catch up on lost sleep. She fell asleep in her clothes from yesterday, but she'll change today. She really had no use for PJs. She only used them on occasion. Her older bruises were almost completely faded away, and her new ones started the healing process. Pretty soon, all there would be was the scars from her old life and new bruises and cuts from training and missions and stuff—hopefully less than what she has now.

She quickly got dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and blue jeans to cover up the scars and bruises. She was more clear-minded than she was last night. No one else needed to see her bruises and scars and think that she's weak and sickly. She put on her shoes and went out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.

Toby has done a lot for her in one night. It was only fair to return the favor. The least she could do is cook him breakfast. She looked in the fridge and saw some eggs. She took out the carton and put it on the counter. She saw some bread laying about too and saw a toaster. 

"Perfect!" She thought to herself. 

She looked around for a frying pan, plates, and utensils. It took her a while to find the stuff in the kitchen, but she made her way around and made very little noise as possible. And was humming a song that she knew to herself.

She put the two pieces of bread in the toaster and started making the eggs for herself first.

Toby was still kind of groggy, but he pulled himself up and yawned. It took him a little while to get used to being awake, so he waited for a bit before turning off his radio. He went up to go to the bathroom. He had several wounds he needed to make sure stayed clean after all. After cleaning himself up, he figured he should go out and get the newspaper or something. After a couple of weeks, he knew that he would have a huge mission that would involve putting on a fake identity and infiltrating a school, which he was not looking forward to. He was incredibly anxious about it. From the bathroom, he could hear a knock on the front door. Oh right. He had locked it. It was probably Jane, and she had probably finished Tabby's mask that night.  
Tabby put her eggs and toast on a plate and went to answer the front door. She unlocked it and opened the door a little bit. Warily and cautiously.

Jane had left the box on the front door. It was a nice looking box. It could be easily opened. She had stayed up all night doing the mask.

Tabby opened the door wider and cautiously picked up the box. She eyed it suspiciously. She decided to leave it on the table and decided to wait for Toby to come out so she wouldn't be alone while opening it, just if it could be a trap. 

Tabby began to eat her breakfast. She kept eyeing the box in a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. She wanted to open it badly but decided that she knew better than to open it by herself as Jane's words echoed through her head from last night.

'Don't trust gifts that are given to you even if they're given by people you know; there are a lot of backstabbers here.' 

She continued to wait patiently.

Toby came outside the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen. He saw Tabby and the box. 

"Oh. That looks like the box Jane uses to deliver masks." He stared plainly. 

He went to the fridge and began rifling through it. Jane's boxes always looked distinct to show that they carried masks that she had made her own.

"Oh, you don't have to rummage through the fridge," she said in between bites. "I was going to make you some eggs as a sort of a thank you. But then I realized that I don't know how you like your eggs...or even if you like eggs...I also didn't know if you were like me, needing to watch your food being made to make sure it's not poisoned. So I waited before I did anything." 

"But if you do like eggs, how do you like them? I could make you some..." she said a little shyly as she looked down and went to open the box. 

She opened the box slowly and warily. She took out the mask and inspected it. It was a pretty teal with golden spirals branching out from one another, and at some angles, the gold glittered in the light. She checked the inside of the mask and smiled to herself when she saw the names of the people she lost engraved inside. She put it on and looked at Toby.

"Oh, it's okay. I'm the type of person who likes taking care of myself." Toby explained.

He had needed to make his own breakfast since he was 8, and a change from routine would just feel somewhat alien. He thanked her for her offer, though. He turned when he felt the air somewhat shift and saw that she had put on her mask.   
"Oh, that looks great. Does it feel okay? Natural?" He asked. He got out some leftover breakfast from the day before and went to heat it.

"Fair enough," she said. 

She understood not wanting to rely on others since she has been neglected since she was 4, so she had to learn how to do the basics of taking care of herself.

"It feels weird at first, but I'll get used to it" she put the mask in her box and went to pick up the eggs and put them back in the fridge.

She finished up the last bit of her egg sandwich that she made and went to do up her little dishes. She unwrapped her left hand so the bandages can stay clean and dry. You could see the surgical incisions that were made to get the glass out. The scars were in that in-between stage of old and fresh. Her hand was healed, but you can tell that the doctors didn't set it right as it looked out of place.

Toby nodded. 

"It will feel weird at first, but soon you'll freak out seeing yourself without it."

He wanted to make the transition into this new life as painless as possible. He remembered being incredibly freaked out at the beginning. He noticed her hand. Oh, man. EJ would lose his shit 'seeing' the work done on that hand. Toby thanked her for doing her dishes. 

"By the way, you said you wanted to go to the library today?" Toby said. "While we're out, I could sort of show you around if you want. A lot of your first missions will be fetched and delivered, so it's nice to know where to go." He was finishing up his breakfast.

"Yeah, I did say that, and it would be nice to know my way around. I mean, I'm going to be on my own at some point, so yeah." 

She dried off her hands and noticed that he was looking at her damaged hand. 

"Yeah, I know it's not a pretty picture. Reason number 1025 of why I hate and don't trust doctors. They can't do their damn jobs right" she gave him a bitter smile.

"So your mission was fairly riskless, huh?" She raised an eyebrow as she nodded towards his injuries. "I do hope you took care of them properly" she gently wrapped her hand in the bandages.

Toby nodded.

"Yeah, you will be. Once you finish training, the boss will give you a new place." He said. "I'll show you around, introduce you to a few people." He said. 

"I understand the sentiment about doctors, though, but for me, it's therapists. My therapist knew I was abused and, as a mandated reporter, didn't call CPS for me." He said. 

He knew there were competent doctors and therapists, but that didn't change his experiences. 

At her comment, he nodded. "They're just small cuts and bruises. Come from running through the woods." He said.

"Same. I hated therapists too. I've been through 7 psychiatrists. My parents believed that I was delusional and paranoid because they didn't believe me about Rosewood's horror stories. My therapists didn't believe anything I said about Rosewood or about how my stepdad abused me but left the rest of my family out of it" she gave him the finger guns and another bitter smile, but she looked like she just wanted to die.

Toby nodded. "I got a therapist after my sister died. I still remember her. She was this older woman, about the same age as my mom, and she always had this fake, vacant smile. It used to piss me off." He said. 

He understood.

"They used my mental illness to totally discredit what I saw and what I said happened to me. She tried to have me involuntarily committed."

Toby shrugged a bit while clearing his dishes. 

"I've thought about killing her, honestly, but I figured it wasn't really worth it." He said, starting the water

"But they did manage to diagnose me correctly on OCD, Anxiety, PTSD, and Paranoia, which all had to do with Rosewood and my stepdad but not for the reasons that they thought. We're probably missing a few others since they can't diagnose me fully correctly", stated Tabby.

"I understand," Toby said. 

He finished cleaning up his dishes. He was already dressed for the day and was still wearing his mouth guard and goggles. He put on his gloves. 

"You ready to go in a bit?" He asked.

"Honestly, they're just doing it to get paid and not caring how they do it" "I've thought about killing my step dad, and I would have if it was just my mom and not...someone else involved..." she trailed off and looked away.

"Well, I killed my dad," Toby said with a shrug. 

"And I let my mom find the body." He put his dishes away. 

"I feel like my life would be so much different if I had actually had a decent therapist. I know they're out there, and I'm just so pissed that I got a shitty one. If I had one that actually cared, I probably would still be human."

"Lucky you. I would have done the same, but I never had the luxury to be selfish. This is the first time I actually put myself first." 

She knew that wasn't entirely true either. She would have gladly let masky and hoodie kill her. She wouldn't even have had to put up a fight. But toby was the one who spared her life, and he did it for a reason. She promised herself that she would stay alive for him so his efforts wouldn't go in vain. It wouldn't be fair to him if she died on top of her promises to kill Horacio and avenge her friends. But he doesn't need to know that.

"Yeah, I'll be ready to go in a few minutes. I just need to brush my hair and teeth real quick." She said, not ignoring his previous statement.

Tabby went to her room to get her things and went into the bathroom to do her thing. She came out with a neater looking ponytail. She grabbed the box and headed back to her room to put her things away. She then came back out wearing the thick red plaid jacket that she always wore with her gray hood and put her new mask on. 

"I'm ready to go."

Toby nodded. "Alright. Let's go." He said. He was in his usual attire. It was worn but clean. 

"Do you want to go to the library first, or would you like me to show you around first?"

"I would like to go to the library first, please, if that's okay. Afterward, it will give us time for you to show me around and meet a few people", said Tabby.

"Okay, that works. There are some things that you'll want to know about the library through." Toby explained.

Tabby paused for a minute. "Which are?" She trailed off.

"Well, the librarians are all disgraced proxies and monsters as well as retired proxies," Toby said. 

"And usually, you're not supposed to talk to the librarians unless it's for something strictly about the library. However, the librarians are brilliant and have vast, comprehensive knowledge over things."

Tabby nodded slowly in understanding, "okay, I got it. I don't usually talk to anyone in general"

"If you get on their good side, they'll defend you, though," Toby said. "A lot of stuff can go down at the library."

She snorted, "doesn't surprise me." 

She had a mini flashback to the library at Rosewood. She was a bookworm, and the library was the least sinister place in the school. Even though it too carried its own dark secrets of Rosewood. Libraries were considered sacred and neutral ground at Rosewood.

Toby knew of a proxy who had gotten beaten to death in the library. The library was usually quiet but sometimes could get very messy. He held the door for her. It was good practice to say goodbye to the desk lady before they left.

"Is that all?" She asked.

"Yeah, pretty much. Would you like me to stay there with you?" he asked.

"Yes, please. Two is better than one, right?" 

She mentally cursed herself for saying yes. She had to prove to him at some point that she could take care of herself and hold her own. But she didn't want to be left in this strange new world that was day 2 for her, especially around strangers who wouldn't hesitate to kill her if given a chance. If she had someone with her, the events of that happening would be slim to none. And she was taught from a young age that you never go anywhere alone. Especially in Maplehood unless you had to.

"Survival reasons," she told him to justify herself, "I'm fresh meat as it is, and curiosity about the new girl is inevitable. I'm crippled and small, and I would be alone, which means it would be easy for someone to kill me without a second thought. I'm young, not stupid, so it's better to go with someone and only go alone if I absolutely have to".

She babbled on her reasoning to him, and she was getting defensive about it because she didn't want him to think that she was a little bitch that can't take care of herself.

Toby understood. She didn't need to justify herself to him. He understood.

"Hey, it really is okay. I'll just sit nearby and maybe chat to a few people." Toby was decently famous.

"Okay… can we go now?" She asked.

"Yeah," Toby said. He moved to let her out of the apartment.

She walked out the front door and waited for Toby. Toby followed her out and led her out of the building. Tabby followed him out of the building, and she kept her head down low and her hands in her pockets. She didn't dare make any eye contact for too long, and she was quiet.  
There were already a lot of people outside. Toby heard something. 

"Go after that human!" 

Toby looked around and saw a small figure darting through the crowd as more and more monsters gathered to watch.

"KILL IT!" Another monster shrieked. 

Toby saw the figure dart into an ally and watched a harassed looking proxy going after the human. Ah. A runt being made to chase the human down. Hm.

Tabby snapped her head up, and her eyes were wide alert. Toby was facing her, so she turned around and got into a fighting stance to attempt to protect him and herself. She was about ready to grab the knives that she had on her. But once she realized that it wasn't for her, she let out a quiet sigh in relief. And dropped her defensive posture. But she was still alert just in case.

Toby watched the young proxy attempt to capture the human. Then the crowd blocked his view. He shrugged.

"We might as well just go." He said to Tabby. "The library is a couple of blocks away from here." He said. He had no interest in trying to watch.

She nodded, not saying anything. It was none of her business, and curiosity does indeed kill the cat from Tabby's life experiences so far. She went back to keeping her head down and putting her hands in her pockets. She quickly walked away to keep up with Toby and to get away from the scene.

Toby heard whoops in the distance, then groans. It seems like that will take a while. He sighed. 

"Humans sometimes accidentally find portals down here." He explained.

"Makes sense," she said quietly, still not looking up. 

That just added to her anxieties. What if her little brother were to show up accidentally? He was only 7. He would never survive this place, nor would she want him to know what she and the others do here for a living.

Toby nodded. They soon arrived at a very tall, somewhat circular building. The door seemed somewhat disproportionate to the size of the building. Toby began to climb up the stairs. This was the library.

Tabby let out a quiet "oh" in awe. She quickly climbed up the stairs.

Toby opened the door for her. The inside of the library was cold, and it was somewhat dark.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

She scurried inside and felt a little more relaxed once the cool air hit her. She took in a deep breath and smelled the familiar smell of a library. She let out a sigh of nostalgia as her eyes got used to the darkness. She saw circular shelves of books, one outside another. And they were so high that there was a ladder for those that can't reach the top. Toby followed behind her. The library was blissfully quiet. He saw a few people scattered around, but none of them were bothering anyone. Secretly she was fangirling inside as this is what her dream library would be basically. She began to look around for the plant books. Looking up and about at everything, practically almost breaking her neck in doing so. Toby let her look around. He saw an old friend of his, so he went to chat with him. A librarian was nearby, quietly hovering by a bookshelf. Tabby grabbed a couple of each. She grabbed two books on edible and poisonous plants. That would be good if she had missions that left her stranded in the woods somewhere. And a couple of books on the plants here and their medical uses would be suitable for her since she doesn't trust doctors and would have to take care of her own serious wounds if she got injured. Then she explored a little more, avoiding the people like they are the plague. There were a couple of human authors here that she liked, and there were other books that she made a mental note of that she might like that she didn't know of. But she wasn't sure how many books she could take out at once. So she just stuck with the books that she planned to take out.

Toby sat next to his friend. EJ glanced up, sensing him here. 

"Oh, good morning, Toby." 

"Hey, Jack. Whatcha up to?" 

"Oh, I'm just taking a break from my work. I got Kate to cover my wing of the medbay today so that I could spend some time in here." 

"How are you reading the books with no eyes?" Toby asked curiously. 

"I can just...feel the letters," EJ said. 

Toby shook his head with a smile. 

"You were always kind of weird." 

"Why thank you," EJ said with a laugh. 

The two continued to chat. EJ was telling him about another malus that he knew that was opening up a restaurant nearby.

Once Tabby was done looking around, she went to what she assumed to be a check out counter and waited patiently. She quickly looked up to make sure that Toby didn't leave her. She saw him nearby and saw that he was talking to a guy in a blue mask that appeared to have no eyes. She quickly looked down. Toby and EJ continued to chat. Toby had fond memories of EJ. EJ had been doing what he did since childhood. As a malus, he was raised in this world. EJ had taken a bit of care with Toby when Toby was new. He had shown Toby the ropes and taught him different ways to stalk people and how to get around in the pitch-black effectively. He was a good dude. A tall librarian passed them, heading towards Tabby. Tabby stood up straight and shifted her weight uncomfortably. She looked up but not for too long. The librarian stopped in front of her and pointed her to the self-checkout line. You didn't need a card here. You could use your fingerprint or leave something as collateral. Tabby let out a silent 'oh.' She nodded her head and said a quiet 'thank you' to the librarian and went to try to figure out this process. She mentally cringed at herself at how godawful awkward she was in front of Toby and his friend. It didn't matter if this was her first time. It was still cringed and awkward. She figured out the process and used her fingerprint as she was now registered in the library. She held her books close to her chest and continued to look down, and walked over towards Toby. Toby didn't care. He knew that it was awkward learning how to do things here. He knew others would've made fun of her, but he saw no point in it. As for EJ, he was totally blind. He had no idea. Toby saw her approaching and smiled.

"Oh, hi Tabby. This is Eyeless Jack. EJ for short." 

"Just Jack also works," EJ said.

"Hello. It's nice to meet you," she said politely. 

She turned to Toby. "I got the books I needed."

EJ nodded and turned back to feeling the book with his fingers. 

Toby smiled. "Awesome." He said. 

He got up. "You probably want to leave now?"

"You can still do whatever you're doing. I can wait," she said, looking down.

She was referring to letting Toby finish up his conversation with EJ.

Toby thanked her and sat back down to continue chatting with EJ.

Tabby sat down a couple of benches over, not wanting to be rude and eavesdrop on the conversation. She began to read one of her books. Toby learned that EJ was about to be sent out on a largely lucrative mission. He would be set for a while. It sounded very tempting too. It was going to be a group thing. Tabby lost herself in the book. She's always been book smart because she loved to learn everything and anything that she could that wouldn't get herself killed. Toby noted that she was pretty engrossed, so he just let her read. EJ let slip that the boss was looking for a group of proxies to do it with him since part of it was infiltrating a school, and he obviously couldn't do that. Tabby continued reading. She was in her favorite reading position. Back against the corner, leaning against the wall and having her legs curled up. Toby eventually finished up his conversation and headed over to Tabby to ask if she still wanted to be shown around. Tabby nodded and closed her book, and got up. Toby grinned.

"Awesome." He said. 

He was honestly a little excited to show her around.

Tabby was smiling stupidly at Toby, being excited but thank god he couldn't see under her mask. She followed behind him and said goodbye to the desk person, and walked out the door. Toby led her out towardsTabby was honestly excited. This was the first time she's had total freedom before. Sure she was still suspicious and wary of everyone and everything around her. And she was always concerned with surviving another day in this new world. But with Toby leading her and she herself looking around her surroundings. She realized that she was having some sort of fun. And it brought a sense of peace for now. It's been a while since she's had either.  
The street. Just ahead of them on the other side was what seemed to be some sort of marketplace. Toby knew that she would probably be okay as she had a mask on. No one really messed with proxies, at least, not in this public of a setting. He led her across the street and to the market place.

"This is sort of like what humans would call a farmer's market," Toby explained to Tabby.

One old, squat green woman was next to a cart of strange, berry-like orbs pulsated and glowed. A tall creature with hulking claws and sharp teeth was next to a booth where Toby could hear meowing and barking. A proxy woman with a pale blue mask was standing next to a cart with jewelry displayed. Toby knew that woman was a WPA member and that that jewelry probably wasn't all that it seemed. A man with pointy ears and a long tail was obviously some type of snack vendor. There were even more booths and carts than Toby could see. 

She looked at Toby. However, he did spare her life and was so nice to her. She wanted to start trusting him little by little and maybe just maybe have him considered as...a friend. She looked away and shook her head. There's no way that she could move on. Not when she still has to avenge her friends and moving on equates to forgetting to her. And she promised herself that she wouldn't forget. Besides, he was a killer; he really shouldn't be trusted. He could quickly kill her at any time. She looked at him as he was explaining the supermarket to her. Perhaps under different circumstances and in another place in time. They would have been the best of friends. I definitely would have tied for first place with Autumn.

She nodded her head eagerly in understanding.

"it's definitely livelier than the human ones. Sometimes my mom would take me to them in the summer and falls since that's when they're open. She liked to look around and attempts to cook with fresh foods. I accidentally got free food from there once", Tabby explained a little excitedly.

Toby nodded and smiled. He had never been to a farmer's market as a human, but Hoodie had told him what it was like. Toby continued to lead her through the stalls, pointing out things he knew. He pointed at the squat woman with the orbs.  
"She's selling Tethered, which are kind of pets? I think they're more similar to familiars, but I'm not sure. They're perfect for neutralizing anxiety, and also, some will kill people who threaten you. Jeff has one named Smile”. 

He pointed at another creature. 

"He sells pets. Mainly just cats and dogs, but I think he has a few birds. Mostly pigeons, though."

They passed by the woman with the jewelry, where another sign said 'CONCEALED WEAPONRY. ASK FOR DETAILS'. The snack vendor was selling some odd-looking food. Toby grimaced. The monster was probably a cannibal. They passed someone selling dried plants and herbs. They gave Bloody Painter selling his art. There were tricks and laughter and even some games being played. One booth sold cursed items. Another sold weapons, but not just standard knives. One woman was selling psychic services. There were so many things to do. Toby was a little overwhelmed with it all, but he did his best not to show it. 

"There are clothes too, I think."

Tabby looked around; her anxiety was picking up. She occasionally fidgeted with her shirt before catching herself and smoothening it out before picking back up on the habit again. There were just too many people there for both of their tastes. She could tell he was getting a little anxious, also, since she is the queen of anxiety. There was something she would have liked to try and buy, but she didn't want to bother Toby, so she stayed silent for a while. 

"There's a lot of things to do here...I can't wait until I get my own money".

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a watercolor painting by the bloody painter. It started as a campfire, then the embers turned into birds, and then the birds turned into stars in the galaxy looking sky. Transitional paintings, as Autumn would call them. What made her stopped dead in her tracks was that it was Autumn's favorite medium to work with, and that was exactly the tattoo she described that she wanted when she turned 18. She died before then. Tabby's eyes showed a mixture of sadness, pain, and nostalgia.

Toby turned to check on her and could see that she was hurt. He decided not to push it as it was probably personal. He decided to try to just talk to her about something else.

"Jack was telling me about a long mission that he was going to go on and that he needed proxies to go with him." He said with a shrug. "I was thinking of volunteering. Would you like to go too? It would be field training, excellent pay, and a way to get to know other proxies you may work with in the future."

Tabby shook her head to get rid of the memories. She looked at Toby with a confused expression for a moment before processing what he just said. She looked at him unsurely.

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea...but training has to start somewhere, I guess...I won't get anywhere if I do nothing..."

"What's the mission exactly?" She looked at him suspiciously.

"It's an infiltration mission," Toby explained. 

"Infiltrating a school." He said. 

"It would be for about a half a year or so? But we would be given an allowance and a house to stay in while we're there. Since you and I look young, we would be the infiltrators. If we go, Masky and Hoodie probably would too. I think they might pretend to be married and our parents." Toby smiled. That would be fun.

Tabby gave him a funny, weird look.

"That would make siblings...for the mission, I mean," she giggled.

"I never had a decent older brother before...you'd be much better than my other one" she stopped abruptly and mentally cursed herself again that she gave out too much information. She wouldn't drag her family into this, especially her little brother Adam. She had a more serious look to her.  
Wait, which school?..." she hoped that it wasn't what she thought it was.

Toby smiled at her. 

"I'll do my best to be a decent brother." He joked. 

He thought for a bit and realized he didn't necessarily know which school it was, only a target within the school.

She laughed.

"I'll think about it," she said thoughtfully.

"If the school was Rosewood or the Maplehood Creek school system. I really can't go back there as I've been missing for two days now, so people are probably looking. Courtesy from the police. And that would put the team at risk, and I'm not having that. However, I can tell you the best ways to sneak in and out. And pointers on what to do and who you should stay away from. Even though he's a measly human compare to you, I don't want to take any chances he has a way of getting into your head", she said and became quieter after mentioning Horacio.

She really wouldn't mind if Horacio were the target. Finally, the bastard has what's coming to him. All she would ask for is to let her make the kill. However, what if it's not? What if it's a child? Specifically her little brother. That thought spiked her anxiety as she picked back up the habit of fidgeting with her shirt again.  
"Hey, I got a few questions."

"Well, if it is in that school district, then I'm sure we could find a way to disguise you. We have our ways." Toby smiled.

"Monsters who don't want to work with proxies have these pills that allow them to change their appearance," Toby explained.

"Though it really only works on non-mali monsters, so EJ can't use em." Toby knew EJ sold those pills, however. Toby continued to walk. 

"Hm?" He would answer any question to the best of his ability.

"Would it be possible to set up a bank account in the human world? Anonymously, of course. Since we're getting paid for these missions, I promised myself that I would get this person out of Maplehood when they're old enough. But I'm here now, so idk how that would work out, and I don't want to be in trouble or drag them into my own mess. Also, would we get in trouble for killing someone on a mission when we're not ordered to? Because if it is Rosewood, I know exactly who I need to go for”.

Toby looked a little confused.

"We have no real need for human money here. We earn our own currency here." He said.

"If we did, then this world would be flooded by international currencies, and business is so much harder to do." He said.

"There are ways to get human money, but usually we trade-in for it at our bank, or we just steal cash from victims." He said.

"And no, we wouldn't get in trouble for killing if not ordered to. He said. "A lot of us go out killing for fun. It shouldn't be a problem."

"Ohh.." she said a little sadly at the first part. Then she'll just have to rely on Adam making the right choices then. "Good," she said at the second part.

"But in all actual seriousness, if it is Rosewood. Stay away from Horacio at all costs if you can. Don't take anything from him, don't give anything to him, don't talk to him, and don't believe a word he says either. I don't care if he's human; it's best not to take any chances. Rosewood isn't exactly a great place to be. It's a place to break your spirit and to become more broken than what a person is now." She spoke frantically, but she stopped herself and took a couple of deep breaths to calm down.

Her tone became more cold and harsh "if he is the target, all I ask is to leave him to me. I'll take care of him" there was like a wave of cold anger, vicious, darker feel around her.  
"However, on a different note," her tone gradually left the coldness and harsher bite to it, "and these are all ifs. I could show you which backroads to use to sneak around town and which spots are excellent hideouts," she added.

Toby nodded. He knew better than to fall for any sort of human nonsense. But then again. They had no idea if that school would even be Rosewood. He hoped it wouldn't be, though he assumed the school would be in a similar area. He was somewhat excited. He let EJ know over the phone to contact Masky and see if they should do this mission. He never really experienced high school and would honestly love to. Tabby stayed quiet for some time. Just having time to mull over her thoughts. She took the time to observe Toby. It made her smile to see him excited about something, even if it was subtle. She thought about it from his perspective. He told her that he'd been homeschooled, so for someone who's never been in a social school setting before, she could understand why it would be exciting to him. Autumn would have loved having him around. He would have made a great addition to the dysfunctional family she used to have.

She finally spoke up, "but whatever school it is. We'll figure out together as a team, right?" 

She sounded much more confident than she ever did or felt. And her tone had a hint of hope and optimism in it.

"Since Jane told me that proxies work in groups and it's normally with people that they work well with or semi trust," she added quickly and looked down and went back to being quiet.

"I just don't want to see you hurt and broken more than what you are...especially if it's Rosewood," she mumbled that was barely audible.

Toby nodded, eyes shining. 

"Yeah! As a team." He said with a bright smile. 

He liked that idea. He also figured the boss would put Tabby with their group anyways. He hadn't heard what she had mumbled. He saw a group of monster children playing on some sort of metal spiderweb. Toby suddenly felt a little anxious. Oh god. Going back to school. Would you be made fun of again? Would he be bullied also? His mind began to travel further and further down that path until he felt a sense of incredible calm wash over him. He saw, holding onto his wrist, a warm golden rope. Thread. Whatever. Seeing that he calmed down, the tendril loosened and pulled away. Toby looked around and saw The Puppeteer nearby. Ah. That was probably it.

Tabby laughed at his childishness. For a moment, she had a mini flashback to when she and autumn were alone. Whether it was after school before she had to go home or when they would sneak out at night together. Tabby would go on her rants of stupidly hopeful, optimistic, childish stuff. Autumn would smile and listen to her. Only with her and Toby, the roles were in reverse. Tabby was playing the part of Autumn, and Toby played the part of a younger and more hopeful version of Tabby.

She won't admit it to anyone, ever, especially to Toby. But her entire past and heart just melted away when he said, 'yeah, like a team.' The only team that she had was her friend group. She hasn't had that in a long time. Strangely enough, she felt at peace with him, and she had a glimmer of a future. Perhaps one with him in it?. She made another promise to herself that she would stay alive long enough to protect Toby from getting bullied at school for the mission. At whatever cost. For a moment, and she made sure no one was looking, she looked at him like he was the best thing in this world.

She looked over to where he was looking and saw a ghostly figure with golden strings. She then put two and two together "so that's the puppeteer," she said in thought in realization, "maybe I'll go talk to him and see what's he about," she also said in thought.

After coming back from being lost in her thoughts, she spoke up, "who was that guy with the golden strings?"

Toby smiled. 

"That is The Puppeteer." He said. 

The Puppeteer was pretty decent to know. Since he was a ghost, he didn't really have a home, and he stayed with people, took away their negative feelings, and was usually welcome. Toby would often see him around Bria- Hoodie. But at the moment, he was hanging around a short girl with a pale, crusty-looking mask. Oh. Kate. Kate wasn't wearing her med mask, so she wasn't working. They seemed to be chatting with each other. Toby told Tabby about Kate.

"That's Kate or the Chaser. She is an excellent medic." He said. Kate was a brilliant proxy and a competent medic. She is one of the more prominent doctors, specially trained by EJ. She keeps secrets well." He had great respect for Kate. She helped a friend of his out with a very...awkward situation.

"Interesting..." she mused to herself.

"Although the idea is tempting, I think I just have too much emotional baggage to the point where he can't take away all of it" she looked at Toby then at Kate distrustfully.

"But I don't like doctors."

"Oh, you'd be surprised how much he could take," Toby said with a laugh. 

"And I know, I know. Kate doesn't treat people unless they ask or need it." Kate would refuse service, too, if people were assholes about it.

She gave a bitter chuckle, "you don't know the half of what I've been through."

She gave a thoughtful look over to Kate "well, that's good, I guess."

Toby sighed.

"Pretty much everyone here who used to be human has been through some sort of hell here." He assured her. 

Toby remembered a time when some monster was ranting to Kate, in her own medbay, about how useless she was. Kate had just stood up and told him to get the hell out. Kate was very no-nonsense.

Tabby sighed and continued walking with him. The marketplace was getting busier, and she didn't want to be left behind, so she sped up her pace to catch up with him. Toby led her past carts with clothes and other things. Toby wondered if he should get some things, maybe a new coat or something. There were some things that he could use. Tabby saw and liked many things, but she didn't want to bother him and waste his own money. There were also free samples of food being given out. Tabby wanted to try some due to her curiosity, but between her anxiety, paranoia, and not knowing if the food was poisonous or not. She decided against it. Toby would have purchased her things if she had asked. He was a good proxy, after all; he wasn't broke or anything. He saw a juice sample being offered for free and thought it looked interesting, so he got a free piece of it and sipped it. It was pretty good. 

"Can I have a sample?", She asked shyly, "if it's not poisoned, that is."

"Sure," Toby said. 

He went and got her a sample as well.

"Poisons aren't really all that popular here, but you can get something to test food for poison." He said.

"You can never be too safe," she said as she took the juice she sniffed it just to be sure.

"Smells good," she said in thought. 

She took a sip "mmmm," she had a big smile on her face. It tasted like apples and berries. 

"What is this exactly? And where can I get the food tester thing?".

Toby smiled. 

"I think Nat makes the juice." He stated, finishing his sample. 

"This is just juice. Non-alcoholic." He said.

"You can get the food testers at stores, and some restaurants have single use ones." He said.

"This is good" she finished up the last of the juice.

"Let's go," she said excitedly, ready to continue this adventure.

Toby smiled. 

"Okay! Do you want to stay here or go somewhere else?" He asked.

"Let's try somewhere else," she said.

"Okay!" Toby continued to lead her along. 

He was going to show her around a downtown area. Tabby stayed close to him so she wouldn't get lost. There was still enough personal space between them but with the occasional arm brushing up against the other's arm. Toby understood. It was whatever. The downtown area was much less crowded. It was very nice. There were shops, restaurants, and other places. They passed a pet shop. Tabby stopped dead in her tracks as she saw a black, white, and orange kitten with a little tear in its ear. She immediately was up to the glass like she was drawn to it. The kitten was play fighting with the other kittens, and when it came to attacking Tabby through the window playfully, it bounced off and tumbled backward a little. Tabby giggled. Toby smiled and let her stay and watch the cat. It was pretty cute. He knew this place treated the pets well. This place also was a vet place. He got Nugget's shots there.

She turned to him.

"I used to have an orange cat back where I used to live. Well, he wasn't really mine. He was a stray, but he did follow me home a couple of times. But my apartment didn't allow pets. So after school, I would spend time with him if my friends were too busy. His name is Mac, which is short for mac and cheese."

For just a moment, her eyes were full of child like wonder instead of there usual haunted, knowing, and troubled look that they usually had. For a moment, she looked young and hopeful instead of her typical mature, tough girl look.

Toby smiled.

"You want to go in and see the rest of the cats?" He offered. 

They might as well. He knew Masky picked up shifts there when he wasn't busy. It was a nice place with decent staff and, of course, lots of cute animals.

Tabby nodded excitedly "yeah!"

"That kitten in there is a rough and tumble troublemaker," she grinned.

Toby grinned and led her inside. The place was loud, with the sounds of cats, dogs, birds, and other animals occupying the space. Tabby played and petted the puppies in their cages, talked to them before the said kitten jumped out of the display cage, padded over towards Tabby, and headbutted her from behind to get her attention. She turned around "why hello there again, troublemaker" she cooed at the kitten and picked it up and pet it with one hand and the puppies with the other. She was sitting down and was frantically trying to give each animal equal love and affection. Toby let her do so. He smiled. It was very nice to see her happy. He went to check in the back where he found the old monster who ran this shop. He was a wrinkled grey creature with stringy silver hair. He had a cage with him and was examining a cat on the table. The old monster had specially made glasses for all six of his eyes. The lenses were thick. The cat was sleek and black and seemed to be very chubby. The monster, called Ed, was muttering to himself in a nasal voice as he looked over the cat. But in the end, she had all of the cats on her as she was being smothered in kitty affection. She sighed in defeat.

Toby checked on her just as Ed brought out the new cat to put in a separate enclosure. Tabby was lying in defeat on the floors. The herd of kittens was all over her. She looked up at Toby.

"I was ambushed."

Toby laughed. 

"You were overwhelmed. There were too many of them."

"There's no such thing as too many. The problem here is that I don't have enough limbs."

She gently shook the kittens to get them off of her. She gently put them back in their display cage by the window.

"We could change that." Toby joked. 

Ed was totally ignoring the two of them. 

"You know, you could always work here between missions." He said. "For a little side cash, you know."

Tabby laughed.

"It would make multitasking easier," she joked back. 

She tilted her head to the side, "I think I would like that."

Toby laughed.

"We can cut off some random human's arms and have EJ attach em to you." He joked some more.  
"The only time I'll let any doctors near me," she joked back.

Toby laughed.

"Fair enough." He said.

"Where are we going now?" she asked.

"Hm. We could finish the downtown tour. I could take you to Nat's- sorry, I mean Clockwork's- bar.".

"I'm old enough here to drink?" She tilted her head to the left as she often did when she was confused 

"Then again, I've been sneaking alcohol and playing bartender to the people I lived with since I was 12. I know how to mix drinks quite well".

Toby looked at her and laughed. 

"This is literally a haven of killers, and you think there's a drinking age here?" He said.

"If you're under ten, you can drink if your parents are with you, but that's the only restriction I've seen."

Tabby laughed and looked down.

"Fair enough" she shrugged her shoulders as she walked with Toby.

Toby led her down the street. It was pretty hot out. Tabby looked around at her surroundings. Although it was pretty hot out, she didn't complain. Toby knew the bar was a couple of blocks down. He began to lead the way. Tabby stuck close to Toby. She kept her head down to avoid the other people. Toby understood. They passed by an alley, and Toby heard the unmistakable sounds of someone getting beat up. Tabby heard the sounds too. She sucked in a breath as she physically cringed deeper into her jacket as she remembered her own beatings by her stepdad and her fistfights with Horacio and others at Rosewood. Her entire body jerked as she felt the phantom pains of her past beatings. She walked quicker. Toby ignored it. This happened if you got too cocky. That was why it was good to have friends here. Masky told him to make sure everyone liked him so they wouldn't beat him. That's what Masky did, and it worked. It took a couple of minutes before the phantom pain died down and a couple of more minutes for her to uncoil from her jacket and then pretended as nothing happened.

Toby soon saw the lights of the bar. Thank god. He made a beeline for the place. It was crowded but never uncomfortably so. Tabby followed him. She saw the lights and how crowded it is. She gulped as her social anxiety kicked in. It was pretty tame at the moment. Nat was tending to the bar. Others sat and talked amongst themselves. Tabby quietly looked around at her surroundings. There were still many people but not as much as Tabby was expecting, so her anxiety died down a little. The situation around her was pretty mellow, so she didn't have to worry about either one of them getting into some sort of trouble. She relaxed a little. Toby asked her if she wanted to get a non-alcoholic drink. He figured that since it was so early, drinking alcohol wouldn't feel right. Sure some people day drank, but he didn't peg Tabby as the type to really want to. Quite a few patrons at the bar were drinking non-alcoholic drinks or drinks with just a small amount. 

"I'll have an alcoholic drink, thank you very much," said Tabby.

Toby shrugged. Alrighty. That was fine with him. Tabby ordered some coconut rum mixed with coca-cola. Toby just got a soda. He didn't feel like drinking and never really drank a lot. Because Tabby is short, her legs dangled off the ground as she was sitting on her bar stool. She looked around at the other people but was careful not to look for too long. Some looked normal, and others looked absolutely freakish. Their drinks were set in front of them. Toby sipped his soda. Tabby casually sipped her drink as she felt the familiar warmth rushing to her cheeks and ears. She hummed quietly as she felt somewhat content with having her a drink that somewhat reminded her of home. Toby did his best to limit his consumption of alcohol. He didn't want to end up like his dad. Nat was cleaning glasses behind the bar. 

"So what do you normally do when you're not on missions and showing the new person around?" asked Tabby.

She cringed at herself internally at how awkward she was at conversation starters.

"Uh...well, I train, honestly. You really never stop learning. But when I have time for myself, I do a lot of social stuff. Like come here.", said Toby awkwardly.

She tilted her head "makes sense. I like to learn a lot too. A wise person once told me that the more you know, the less you have something to be afraid of. After all, you can't be afraid of something if you know what that thing is," she said thoughtfully.

Toby smiled. 

"Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it." He said. 

He took another sip of his drink right when his phone buzzed. Proxies had really crappy phones, usually burners, but Toby could receive texts. It was from Masky, saying that the Slenderman confirmed they could go on this mission and leave in a couple of days. It would be good practice for Tabby. Tabby looked at his phone in a mixture of confusion and curiosity. Toby explained that they had been confirmed on the mission.

"So we're going then?" She asked. 

She looked at herself weirdly "it's been a while since I've used 'we' and 'us' terms. It's a nice change."

"Yeah, we are!" Toby said.   
"And I'm guessing that since you're coming, the boss wants us in a group together." Toby seemed pretty excited at the concept.

Tabby genuinely smiled, which gave a lopsided grin and gave her dimples and crinkles underneath her eyes.

"Better now than never, I guess!" She was done with her drink.

Toby finished his up. He smiled. He then told her the name of the school.

"The school is called Greengrove High. It's near Rosewood, but it's not in either school district. It's a public school but has a low attendance rate."

She sighed in relief.

"Thank thy fucking lord. I know where that is. It's in Maplehood still. I'm told it's a lot like Rosewood, but it's not a prestigious school. So no rich folks, only problematic and semi-intelligent people". 

She was still thinking, "I can still show you the best ways to sneak around town, and I can still get my revenge hopefully" she looked more visibly relaxed now that she thought she didn't have to protect him from Horacio.

However, she still planned to keep her silent promise to protect him from bullies since she knew there were bound to be some.

She realized something.

"Hey! I don't have to wear school uniforms any more... Jesus, it's been 8 years since I've been in a public school."

"Yeah! You know a lot more about the towns than we do- well, I think Hoodie is actually pretty familiar with the town. I think his brother lives there. Anyways, we can meet up with them and EJ later. I think preparations are being made for us to live in a building close to the school." He said. 

He laughed about the uniform's comment. "Yeah! And I won't have to wear a mask. And I can go to classes...and meet people my age..."

"But he's a doctor...I don't like doctors; why are we going to see him?" she said slowly. 

Some would notice some would not, but once Toby said, 'meet people my age,' there was a flash of jealousy on her face that quickly dissipated.

"Because he's the one who got the mission first," Toby said. 

"If you tell him to back off, he will." He assured her.   
Toby didn't notice. He was too caught up in his excitement. Real people! His age! And he maybe won't even have to kill them! 

Tabby sighed "fair enough." 

She then became more relaxed once again and spoke more softly.

"I'll be back in familiar territory again. I'll be up against people my own age who are give or take in intelligence and strength. So maybe my anxiety won't skyrocket, and maybe I won't have to fight to survive another day as much."

Toby nodded. 

"I don't think it will be so bad!" He sounded very optimistic about the whole situation. He couldn't wait.

Tabby gave him the same genuine lopsided grin. She absolutely adored his optimism. 

Toby was excited about the whole thing.

"Plus, this mission will pay super well. You would be able to afford almost anything. And...I bet the boss would pay in human cash if you wanted...".

Tabby nodded thoughtfully.

"That would definitely help me fulfill one of my promises that I made."

Toby nodded and smiled. He decided just to get water. The soda he had gotten was already a significant deviation from his regular diet. Tabby didn't order anything else. One drink was enough for the day. She quietly observed everything around her and tried to look at Toby more without making herself look more like a creep and blatantly staring. Toby finished his water. He paid for their drinks.

"So! Should we continue the tour?" He asked with a happy smile. His stomach had settled from the soda. He usually didn't drink that.

Tabby nodded her head eagerly with a smile. "I'd like that very much" she slid off her barstool to go follow him. 

Toby waved bye to other people at the bar, avoiding looking at Clockwork as he led Tabby out. Tabby noticed that he avoided talking or looking at clockwork like the plague. But she quickly decided that it wasn't her place to ask questions and be privy to other people's personal information. But she made a mental note of it. She followed Toby out of the bar and into the streets. Toby led her past a couple of buildings and told her what they were. 

"Oh, that's Bloody Painter's art studio. The one next to it is a medbay. The building past that is the monster's only, so don't even worry about it. Next to that is BEN's 'office' area. A few shops. There's the Eastern Main Mission Center. Thankfully we're proxies, so we don't use that much. Oh, there's a training gym. You might want to head there later. It does more than train you how to fight. It's pretty cool."

She listened thoughtfully. She looked at the bloody painter's art studio. She sucked in a breath as the nostalgia of Autumn kicked in hard. Autumn would have gotten on well with the bloody painter since they were both artistic. She shook her head to clear her head.

"That's good to know. I can gain more skills and takedown Horacio once and for all. The more I know and able to do, the better off I am".

Toby nodded.

"Yeah! They teach you some pretty cool stuff there." He said. 

"Like I learned some neat tracking tricks there." 

He looked around the area. A few monsters mulled around, but there were barely any proxies. Toby knew that they were close to the monster territory but knew better than to take Tabby there.   
She tilted her head to the right as she often did when she was thoughtful. 

"That could be useful."

She noticed that there were less of...them and more of the monsters. 

"I see there's less of us as we keep walking."

"Yeah, we're close to some monsters only territory," Toby said, continuing to walk and starting to speed up.

Tabby sped up with him. She kept her head down, and she started to fidget with the bottom of her shirt again. She prayed that they wouldn't get into any kind of trouble. You could visibly see that she was uneasy. 

"You'll be fine." Toby had noticed her unease. 

"They usually don't go for proxies unless you actually step into the monsters only area. Oh, look, there's Masky."

Masky was standing off to the side, chatting and laughing with some monster that Toby didn't know. 

She eyed Toby suspiciously. She didn't really trust him for her own protection, but she decided that her survival chances would be better if she still stuck with him. She stood up straight, carried an emotionless expression, and straightened out her shirt as she narrowed her eyes at Masky.

"Ah, the man who was about to kill me last night."

"Uh, yeah. And your new team leader." Toby said awkwardly. 

They really shouldn't have any problems here as long as Tabby kept her mouth shut, which she would probably do until they were in a safer area. She probably knew that there wasn't much he could do if she decided to pick a fight. It would make them both seem cowardly if he intervened on her behalf again. 

"Are you serious?" She said in disbelief, but she kept her voice low. 

She paused for a minute to assess the situation that was about to come up. Tabby was taught at a young age to know her place and keep her mouth shut. She really couldn't fight Masky since he was older and more experienced, plus he had another person with him so that she would be out numbered. She didn't want to drag Toby into her fights. As she specifically told him not to fight her battles for her. So she'll take the shit that Masky gives her. Tabby looked pissed, but she gave Toby a look that was full of resignation and that she'll back off. 

Toby nodded. 

"Yeah, really." He said.

He knew that she'd be surprised when she actually talked to him later. When Masky isn't trying to kill someone, he's a charming dude. He's so pleasant that sometimes Toby forgets that he's a bloodthirsty proxy.

"He'll be part of the training you," Toby told her. 

"And I'm sure Hoodie will help as well." He smiled awkwardly under his mouthguard.

Tabby huffed, but she kept her mouth shut and defensively crossed her arms. If anything, she's more passive to people that she hates that she can't beat.

"I'll learn what I can, and I'll work with them but outside of that, I want nothing to do with them."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Toby said with a laugh. He continued.

"It's not funny! I'm serious!" She hissed as she ran after him to catch up.

Toby raised his eyebrows. 

"It is. Just a little bit." He said good-naturedly. He slowed down a bit.

She playfully hit his arm and caught up with him. She was just fake mad at him. Toby laughed. He knew she was just teasing, and it didn't hurt anyways. Tabby was in a slightly better mood after that. So she could deal with Masks shit a little bit easier. Toby laughed. They passed the monster's only area and were in a much safer place now. Tabby's defensiveness died down somewhat, and she was semi-relaxed. Toby smiled. They passed by a weird warehouse looking place. Tabby looked at the warehouse with curiosity. She realized that they have been walking for a long time now. But she didn't mind it since she was always on her feet for hours on end, which is why she can't feel a thing the heels of her feet. 

"Oh, that's where a bunch of...um...stuff goes down. You don't need to worry about it. I wouldn't advise going in there, though." Toby said. 

He didn't even go in there. He knew proxies who went in there and never came out.

Tabby nodded

"Well, I don't plan on going in there anytime soon...or ever..." she went disturbingly quiet after that.

Toby nodded. They passed what looked like a daycare. Toby smiled a bit. He could see out in the yard. Little monster kids playing on a playground. Tabby stopped for a moment she gave a soft smile. It reminded her of when she and Adam used to go to daycare. But because Tabby was one of the older kids, she would help out with the younger kids. And at the end of the day, she would push Adam in his stroller on their way home if their mom was still working and if her stepdad was too lazy to get them. But she didn't mind it though she enjoys taking care of Adam. Because it proves to herself that she's not a bad person, contrary to what her step dad tells her. Her eyes were once again filled with a sense of nostalgia, and I daresay a little bit of homesickness, despite it not really being a good place. Toby smiled. He remembered when he first came here. He was surprised that people like them could have families here. He was under the impression that most were created by their bosses, if not all of them. But then he learned more and learned that most proxies were born here and raised here and trained here. It was...weirdly sweet. Tabby realized that she missed her little brother, and she hoped that he wouldn't be dragged into her new fucked up lifestyle. She also hoped that he would be okay without her. Well, he was going to have to be whether he liked it or not. To take care of him, she needed to take care of herself. She deemed it as a form of tough love. 

"Hey Toby, I have another question," she piped up.

"Yeah, what's up?" Toby asked as they passed by the daycare. 

They passed a few places that looked like houses and a park-like area. He glanced around. Basically, no one was outside. That was great. 

"I know that relationships with other humans are....prohibited...but would it be okay if now and then if I were to go up to the human world and just periodically check up on...this person...just stalking in the distance no interactions whatsoever?", she asked.

Toby seemed to stare off into the distance for a bit. He looked...sad. 

"Yeah...I suppose it's okay, but only if you don't tell anyone. Especially your boss." 

Toby seemed to be lost in thought. In reality, he was thinking about his mother.

Tabby nodded.

"Well, I don't plan on telling anyone else...so yeah." 

She realized that Toby was deep in thought because she does the same thing he does when deep in thought.

"Hey, are you okay?" She said slowly.

"Huh?" Toby seemed to snap out of it. 

"Oh yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He said. He tried to give her a reassuring smile as he checked his watch. 

"Oh, damn. It's a lot later than I thought it was."

She gave him a look that said, 'I don't believe you,' but she let it go. She learned that to keep a friend. You don't push shit.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Toby said. He furrowed his brows. 

"We probably should eat something. But only if you're hungry. If you're not, we could try some training or something."

"I'm not hungry yet. We could try some training. It's either now or never," she said eagerly.

Toby looked sort of excited. 

"Okay. To preface this, I can't teach you everything. There's some stuff I don't know how to do. You'll have to get either Masky or Hoodie to teach you those things, okay?" 

He turned and began making his way back to the gym. They could train there unless Tabby wanted to stay outside where it was hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement.

"Fair enough" she followed Toby to the gym.

Toby was quick, so he got there a little before Tabby did. He was kind of excited. Tabby ran to meet him there. She was actually very fast and wasn't out of breath when she caught up to him at the gym entrance. Toby opened the door for her. Air conditioning blasted through the doorway. The gym smelled like a combination of heavy air freshener, sweat, and blood.

"This smells like the gym at Rosewood," said Tabby out of nowhere.

Toby laughed. "Well, I mean, I figure all gyms smell the same."

Tabby tilted her head to the right.

"Well, the gym at Maplehood elementary school smelled like fresh lemons and dirty gym socks."

"Gross." Toby wrinkled his nose but smiled. 

He led her past the check-in desk. That was only for if they wanted the higher-tech training things or if they wanted to sign up for a class. He led her into the main room. There were quite a few people, all of whom were training. There was a small arena off to the side where two men fought each other rather aggressively with knives. There was a station near the middle with what seemed like flashcards and little trays of things. There was a rope course up on the ceiling, with the only access point being a climbing rope. There were weights, training dummies, and human-shaped cutouts that served as targets, all in various states of disrepair. Toby knew the better training gym was about two hours from this location, but it was still decent. If they wanted the better stuff, they had to sign in. 

"So, where do you want to start?" She said she took off her jacket, sat on a nearby bench, and tightened up her ponytail.

"Hm. Well, I'm not too good at long-distance stuff. You'll have to ask Hoodie for that." Toby mused. He glanced at the rock wall but figured that with her messed up hand, that wouldn't be too nice. A female proxy was working at the station near the middle. 

"Oh, you said you wanted to learn plant stuff, right?"

Tabby nodded her head eagerly "yeah, I did. Why?"

Toby led her to the middle station. In the little containers were different kinds of plants from the human world and the monster world. It was a type of memory game. Tabby is awful at memory, but she did recognize all of the plants from the human world due to books and growing up in the woods. She remembered a few plants from here from the book that she was currently reading. But in time, she learned what the majority of plants were and their uses. After 5-6 tries. Tabby was getting quicker and better at the memory game after an hour. Toby was happy about that. He wasn't all too good with this sort of plant stuff. Tabby was satisfied when she got the hang of it and went back over to Toby.

Toby smiled. 

"Cool! Er, you can choose what you want to learn next, okay?" He was new to the whole training thing.

"Well...I'm pretty good at close-range fighting...Although I don't really have any grace...my skills are pretty unorthodox...I'm good with weapons, but they're harder to control than fists...", she was self-analyzing herself.

"Well, we can work on that!" Toby said happily. 

"I think I will be able to help you clean up your moves and whatnot." Toby seemed pretty excited. 

"Also, one of the trainers here is missing an arm. He could show you some cool stuff that I probably couldn't."

"Use every body part if you can in a fight or any blunt object you can get your hands on if it turned into that," she said with a shrug.

"Yeah, that's pretty good advice," Toby said. He had no idea where to start.

"Well, at Rosewood, I was a known fighter and straight-A student. Other kids always tried to pick fights with me once they knew I could make Horacio turn tail. Often it started as fistfights, then weapons, and then just dirty unfair fighting. So I learned quickly to be well rounded." 

She nodded her head and turned to look at Toby. 

"I know how to break someone's arm in 3 different places with one move. I could show it to you if you want," she said excitedly. Toby laughed. "Maybe later. And not on me, please. Just because I can't feel any pain doesn't mean that I can't be messed up." He grinned. He glanced over at a knife-throwing station. He saw an older proxy there, a tall, very buff woman with lots of tattoos. He watched. She nailed each target with deadly accuracy. Her curly light brown, almost blonde hair was in a tight ponytail. 

Tabby quickly "oh no, no, I'm not actually going to break your arm, but I can walk you through the motions."

She looked confused when he said he couldn't feel pain.

"How and why?"

"It's fine! Maybe later." Toby had responded. He didn't really feel like explaining CIPA at the moment, so he just said that that was what he had, and he couldn't feel pain because of it,

Tabby nodded slowly and gave him an unsure look. "All alrighty then," she decided to change the subject.  
"So, who's that lady over there?" She pointed to the one throwing knives.

"That's Laura," Toby said. 

"She's one of the older proxies. She's sort of like a cool aunt. She is also incredibly deadly, so that I wouldn't mess with her. She's pretty chill, though."

"She sounds cool," said Tabby tilted her head in thought.

"I have pretty good precision when it comes to throwing things, Although my accuracy is a hit or miss more times than not"

"Nice. Laura does a lot of work with people regarding accuracy with knives and guns. She was the one that trained Hoodie on it."

She nodded and paused for a minute "would it be okay if I asked her to help me practice better?" She looked warily at the stranger.

"Yeah, it would!" Toby knew Laura was pretty decent. She had a good reputation of only beating up people who deserved it.

She gave Toby a look that said, "I don't really trust you with this" she looked at the stranger with the same face. But if she wanted to learn, which she did, she would have to push away her social anxiety and seek out help herself. She gave Toby a curt nod and recompose herself. She stood up straight and kept her neutral expression, which was a bored, slightly put upon the face. She walked up to Laura. She cleared her throat.

"Excuse me?" She said in a polite tone but still assertive enough to catch her attention. She held her breath and prayed that she wouldn't hit her or attack her in any way.

Laura turned and glanced at her. She had the same level of suspicion but then noticed the particular look Tabby had. A new proxy. She could tell just by looking at her and the way she stood. Her distrustful posture eased away, and she offered her a smile. 

"Oh. Hey. You need something?" It was instinctual. She couldn't help it.

Tabby shifted uncomfortably but still stood her ground. Her suspicion and defensive posture dropped a little as Laura's suspicion fell too. She gave a small polite smile in return. 

"Hello. My name is Tabby; I saw that you were good at throwing knives with good precision and accuracy. I'm pretty good myself. My precision is good, but my accuracy is a hit or misses more often than not. I was wondering if you could give me some pointers" she looked down, waiting for the rejection of 'get the lost kid. You're not worth my time.' She still proceeded with wary and cautious during the interaction. 

"Sure thing, kid," Laura said with an indulging look in her eyes. 

She stepped back. 

"First, let me see you throw." She said. Her voice was rough but not aggressive. Her tattoos seemed to ripple and move even when she stood perfectly still. She wasn't the type to tell people to get lost. If they were respectful, she would teach them. She handed Tabby some throwing knives.

Tabby took the knife into her right hand. She held it in the correct way to throw. She turned her head a little to get a better aim. She adjusted her arm and threw the knife with a flick of her wrist. It is the bullseye due to the centripetal force from the flick of her wrist. Her voice reminded her of her mom with her gruff exterior. For a moment,, she had a flash of homesickness. She looked at Laura,, expectantly,, waiting for some critique. Tabby threw a few more using the same motions and her wide stance for the foundation. One landed way outside of the bullseye, and the other landed a couple of rings over to the left of the bullseye. She looked back a Laura apologetically. 

Laura nodded slowly. She saw her problems.

"The wide stance only works if you're facing your target head-on. That's why you missed the ones off to the side." 

Laura then got into her own stance. 

"Try this one. It's more versatile, and it also allows you to react quickly to threats not coming after you head-on." Laura was smiling softly. 

Tabby reminded her of- no. There could be someone who could read her thoughts here. She mustn't think about that. 

"Oh, so you're saying if I shortened my stance a little, it would work better? Like this?" She shortened her stance and threw one of the knives with a flick of her wrist. And it hit the bullseye straight on. She copied Laura's stance. 

"Mhm." Laura nodded. 

"It also makes it easier to do something like this-" 

She pulled out a throwing knife and whipped around. The knife stabbed someone's apple, shot it out of their hands, and impaled it into the wall. Laura grinned. That was a teammate of hers, and they always messed around like that. He laughed, then flipped Laura off, which Laura returned before turning back to Tabby.

Tabby grinned and laughed. "I'm good, but I don't think I have enough coordination for that."

"You can get there. Coordination is mostly training anyways. Only a bit of it is a natural ability." Laura smiled at Tabby. 

"Anything else?"

"Good to know," she smiled and thought about it. "I think I'm good for right now. But if I think of anything else, I'll let you know."

Laura nodded. She understood. She smiled at the girl and turned back to the targets. She was glad to help. Tabby walked back over to Toby with a satisfied grin. 

Toby smiled. 

"Well, that went well." He said.

Tabby nodded excitedly "yeah, who knew that it was all in the stance."

"Yeah! A lot of it is. Laura is also really good at showing people how to do it because she's trained a lot of people."

"Well, that's good." 

"I think I had enough training for now, and I'm kinda hungry."

"Okay! We can go get something to eat." Toby said

Tabby nodded and began to walk out of the gym with Toby. Toby was feeling a bit peckish as well. He figured there were a few restaurants nearby. Tabby was looking around at her surroundings, more being lost in thought. Toby thought he noticed someone in the shadows but ignored it. Tabby had felt like she was being watched by someone or something in the shadows. She wasn't sure if it was her paranoia, delusional from lack of sleep, or just the darkness of Rosewood following her. She chalked it up a mixture of all 3. However, Tabby was a little more on edge as her Intuition was screaming at her to watch out. Toby felt out, feeling with his mind, trying to sense if it was another proxy as the shadow was humanoid. Proxies, for the most part, knew when other proxies were in the area. They were all connected in a sort of hivemind. When a proxy was in danger, everyone tuning in knowing about it. Most experienced proxies were able to tune it out, but Toby still wasn't able to. The presence didn't feel like a proxy. Tabby quickened her pace.

"Maybe if I ignore it and outspeed it. It would go away," she said in thought.

She had her arms to carry her books and her hands in opposite pockets. She had both knives in the correct position in her hands just in case.

Despite the figure keeping close to the shadows, Toby noticed that it was trying to keep out of sight. It was scared. It seemed to be shuffling like it was hurt. But the figure wasn't heading anywhere towards a medbay. Toby remembered the scene from earlier with the human who had gotten down into this place. What if…

Tabby's paranoia was skyrocketing. She was a little bit tense and jumpy. Even though her eyes were on the ground, they were darting all over the place. She didn't say anything and kept up the fast pace. 

"Whoever it is is just as scared as you," Toby mumbled to Tabby. 

Jane passed them on the other side of the street, an arm filled with groceries. She, too, looked into the alleyway and quickly went in. 

Toby sighed. "She's got it."

She snapped her head up to the point where you heard her neck crack, and it probably sounded painful. She winced for a moment before narrowing her eyes at him and sounding defensive.

"I'm not scared. I'm cautious. There's a difference".

Toby raised his eyebrows and said nothing. 

"Come on. Let's go." He said, just leading her along. There was no point in lingering.

She looked back down and continued walking. Toby knew he would ask Jane about it later. She made it a point to stay closer to him just in case. But not enough to be obnoxious about it.

"We could go back to Clockwork's bar for something or maybe go somewhere else to eat.”

"We can go somewhere else. I mean, it's not like we have anything better to do" she shrugged.

Toby nodded. "I have a strict diet I need to stick to, though."

"Fair enough."

Toby thought for a bit about places they could go to. Meanwhile, tabby was lost in her own thoughts. On top of processing what tf happened last night, figuring out what her next move would be, surviving today, planning Horacio's death, missing her friends, mom, and little brother. She was thinking about something that she never thought that she could have—a future. Tabby was good at thinking long term for her choices. But not when it comes to herself. But looking around and seeing other establishments and older people. It made her realize that maybe she can live long enough to open up her own restaurant per se perhaps. Food has always been her passion, and she has experience and joy in working in a kitchen. Or maybe to just live out the rest of her life. If she lived long enough, that thought put a little seed of hope in her head and gave her a tiny bit of her will to live back. Tabby looked like she was zoned out, which means that she was in deep thought. Toby found a restaurant nearby and led Tabby in. It was some random hole in the wall ran by a couple of monsters. Tabby looked around at her surroundings. She had a warm smile on her face from nostalgia. It reminded her of the restaurant she used to work at. Even though she was in the back of the kitchen, she always enjoyed the praise of customers when they like the food that she made. It was nice to be back in a familiar surrounding. The place smelled nice, and it was warm. The tables were somewhat crowded together and in a bit of a disarray. You would seat yourself here. Toby found a small table near the corner where they could sit. Tabby sat in the corner with her back facing the wall. That way, there was no chance of anyone attacking her from behind, and she can see what everyone else is doing.

"This is nice. It reminds me of where I used to work".

"Oh, cool!" Toby said with a smile. He had gotten them both menus.

Tabby nodded and looked on the menu to figure out what she wanted. Toby would probably get a salad and water. He didn't trust much of the meat here. Mostly since there was a cannibal section, Tabby would get a salad, too, since she really didn't trust food being made by other people unless she was watching them or if she was making it herself. But she figured that nothing could really go wrong with a salad. The place was crowded, so Toby highly doubted the food would be poisoned. He also got water and had one of the single-use poison detectors to use just in case. He had picked one up as he got a menu. Tabby got water, too, and she was quite happy to see the single-use poison detectors. Toby glanced around. No one was paying much attention to them except for a little monster boy in a highchair. He was a chubby little thing with a round face and tiny nubby horns. Tabby smiled softly at the monster baby. It reminded her of her little brother, who was a chubby little thing when he was born. Now he has more of a stocky build, but he still has a baby fat left. The little monster baby was babbling to what appeared to be his mother. He had a toy giraffe in his hand, or what used to look like a giraffe. It had been chewed so much. Tabby giggled and looked away. She didn't want to cause too much trouble. She was looking out the window now. 

A waiter soon came to take their order. It was a ghost, which made sense. A lot of spirits wanted to spend eternity not being bored, so a lot of em got jobs. Tabby ordered a chicken salad and water. Toby ordered what he had planned on ordering. Tabby realized that it was a ghost as she's always been able to see the whole range of paranormal shit. She then looked sad and in thought. She knew ghosts were real. And she knew damn well that the majority of her friends didn't pass over yet since they all died a brutal death. So how come none of them tried to make contact with her to let her know that at least some of them were okay. Especially Autumn. She was sure that she would find a way to contact her. ,Any way at all. But it's been a month and nothing. Tabby had her legs crossed and had her hands neatly in her lap as her leg was casually bouncing from being anxious, and she was looking out the window. Toby was deep in thought. He looked out the window. He saw Jane hurriedly leading someone along. They had a placeholder mask on, which was weird because Toby could sense that they weren't a proxy.

Tabby said quietly, "isn't that the guy who was following us?".

"I think so.”

She tilted her head to the right-thinking, "they must be just as nerve racked as I was yesterday when I came here." 

"But then again, I'm always nerve racked."

Toby nodded. He had suspicions, and he voiced them to Tabby. "I think whoever it is might be a human who got in here."

"What makes you say that? And why are they still here then? Can't Jane and them get into trouble?"

"Because I can't sense them. And yes, they could. They both could be killed, which is why we gotta shut up and ask them in private."

Tabby immediately closed her mouth and nodded. She looked down at her lap.

Toby nodded. "We can ask her later."

"Okay," she said quietly.

Soon their food arrived at their table. Toby tested his food and water. No poison. Awesome. Tabby waited for her turn. She eyed her food and water suspiciously. She smelled it first just in case if she could tell if something was off with the food.

Toby handed her a testing stick. "Oh-here.”

It took Tabby a couple of tries and inspecting the thing weirdly and letting out a few quiet 'oh...oh that's how it works' when her eyes light up with realization as she was figuring out how it works. Her food wasn't poisoned, thank god, so she was happily munching down on the salad. Toby ate him pretty quickly. He was pretty hungry, honestly. As he sipped his water, he looked around. He saw the family with the little monster baby. He saw what was obviously a group of proxies about to start a mission. He saw an awkward first date. Tabby saw the same thing. Tabby scarfed down her food like she wouldn't see food ever again like a ravenous animal. Tabby realized that this is something that people would do on a first date, like what she would read about and see on tv. They would go out to eat and make small talk. Which means that would make Toby her first date. She stopped functioning for a minute as she blushed a little at the thought. She held her cheek in her hand with her elbow propped onto the table as she looked out the window to hide the blush that was spreading to her ears. Tabby was done with her salad and was drinking the water in an attempt to stop her blush. Toby didn't notice. He honestly hadn't thought of it that way. He didn't watch that much TV or even movies. He simply finished his water. Her blush died down a lot. She completed her water.

"Are you done with your food. Because I am".

"Oh yeah, I am. I just need to pay, and we can leave." Toby said.

"Okay," she said quietly as she picked everything up and put it in a neat, organized pile so that way it would be easier for the servers to pick up.

Toby got up to go to the front to pay. A server came by and picked up all the plates. Tabby thanked them and walked with Toby out the door. Toby felt a lot better after eating. He was still a little curious about what had been going on earlier. He wanted to ask Jane. Tabby kept to herself and walked quietly with him. She really didn't see the point in talking unless she was spoken to or really interested in something. She looked over at Toby, trying to be discreet about taking in all of his features. Toby was deep in thought. It was hard to see his face as he was wearing his mouthguard and goggles. If Jane had saved a human's life, she would be risking her own. Tabby was spacing out. Her head was empty for once. Which meant some peace for her for a little while, at least. Finally. Toby had found his way back to the apartment. He was just about to open the door for them both when he noticed he had a message waiting for him. Tabby walked in and looked at the note curiously but didn't pry too much. Toby read it. It was from Masky, setting a time for when they would meet up the next day. 

Tabby raised an eyebrow "does it say anything important?".

"It's just when and where we're meeting up with the rest of the group tomorrow," Toby said. 

"The group being Masky, Hoodie, you, EJ, and anyone else put on this mission with us."

Tabby nodded and sighed and groaned when she heard Masks name "ugh...him? I hate him...." She went to her room to put away her books and came back out.

Toby laughed a bit. "You might want to give him a second chance. He's actually kind of decent. A bit of a dork, actually, but don't tell him I said that."

She gave him a small smile "don't worry, I ain't a snitch. Your secret is safe with me."

Toby laughed a bit. Then sighed. It was nice to be in the air conditioning.

"So now what?" She asked as she rubbed her arm awkwardly.

"Well, we could go out again and find something to do, we could go do something in the human world, or we could just chill here."

"I don't really care. It's up to you."

"I got what I wanted out of today, so I'm good."

"Okay, fair enough. If you don't care, I'm going to talk to Jane about what we saw earlier. You can come if you want, but if you don't, that's chill."

"I'll go. I'm curious as well."

"Okay, awesome," Toby said.

Tabby re-tightened her ponytail. "Let's go.”

Toby made his way to the door. Tabby followed suit. Toby opened the door. Tabby walked out and waited for him since she really didn't know where she was going. Toby led her to the door right next to theirs and knocked. He heard footsteps and the sound of someone moving so they could peak through the eye hole. Then the door opened a crack. 

"Hi, guys-"

Tabby gave a small wave with her left hand. Jane opened the door and let them in with a furtive look. Tabby entered cautiously. Taking in her surroundings. Jane's apartment looked pretty nice, though it was filled with masks. Something was cooking slowly in a crockpot, which smelled amazing. Jane offered them a weak smile. Tabby took note of the look and smile. She knows Jane is hiding something because she gives the same look that Tabby gives her stepdad when he confronts her on the stuff she's sneaky about. The smell of something cooking in the crockpot made her stomach growl loudly. She crossed her arms over her stomach with a look of embarrassment. 

"So! What brings you here-" Jane started to ask. 

Toby put a hand up. 

"You're hiding something." 

Jane looked taken aback. 

"Hiding something? What would I be hiding-?" 

"It's okay, Jane. Neither of us will tell anyone. We promise. We both saw you with that person. We both know they're not a proxy, but they're wearing a mask. Please...you can tell us."

"it's okay" Tabby gave a smile of reassurance.

She held her arms behind her back. Jane nodded slowly, then took a shuddering breath.

"I'll hold you both to this, you know. If anyone finds out, you can expect me not to react kindly." She got up and went to a closed door. She opened it. Toby could just make out, "Kayla, you can come out. They won't hurt you." 

Toby watched as Jane led a human out of the room. The human was a girl, short with dark, heavy eyes, a dark complexion, and long cornrows. She dressed very nicely in a cream-colored sundress that was now covered with dirt and blood. She had various injuries of varying degrees of severity, each treated but not professionally.  
"She accidentally found her way down here with her friends...".

Tabby felt a pang of sympathy for her. She looked just like her when the boys found her in the woods. She noted her injuries. 

"I'm Tabby." 

She looked over at Jane.

"Isn't there any way to return her?"

"I'm going to take her. Tonight. But I need to see if I can find any of her friends." Jane said. Kayla looked shaky and terrified. She avoided looking at them.

"Hey...Kayla listen...I know what it's like being terrified....but we are the few good people...we'll be able to help you....where did you see your other friends last? Did you all fall together?" She looked over at Toby with an expression that says, 'i know us being good people isn't true but please just go with it.'

Kayla shook her head. 

"We went different ways after we landed, trying to find a way out. I don't know how we got in-"   
She was shaky and looked like she wanted to cry.

"I don't know where they are-" 

Jane patted her shoulder gently. Kayla winced. Jane retracted her hand quickly. 

"Who all is with you?"

"Me and my four friends...Kyle, Nico, Angelina, and Erica..." Kayla buried her face in her hands. Her voice was shaky. "I don't know if they're-if they're still-"

Tabby took a deep breath.

"If they're still alive?" She sighed, "honestly, that could be a 50/50" "but we'll try to help in any way we can." 

Toby nodded. "In return for us returning you to safety with your friends, you may not tell anyone about this place or what's in it. Understand? If you do, we can't help you." 

Kayla nodded. "Okay, just please-"

"Where would your friends most likely go? Based on what they like. Normally, people have preferred hiding places or places where they would hide or get away from everything in the human world. Maybe they would be in similar places here or close to it", asked Tabby.

"Erica is fast...she wouldn't hide. She would keep moving and never be in one place. Angelina would hide as far away from others as she could, so somewhere out in the woods. Nico...god, Nico would try to blend in. He would hide in plain sight if he could. He would listen in and figure out what was going on and mask himself. Kyle...Kyle would hide in a large building if he could. A large place with a lot of hidey holes.", said Kayla.

"Alrighty well... Erica and Nico would be a challenge....but I'm sure we can find Angelina and Kyle..." she said, thinking out loud. 

She turned to Toby "are there any most likely places that match those descriptions?"

Toby nodded. "Yeah. I can try to find Erica and Nico. I can sense them. You try to find Angelina and Kyle. Check the library and big buildings like that. Jane will help you."

"Alrighty, then let's go. I just hope we don't get caught", said Tabby.

"Isn't there anything to like to mask her as a proxy just temporarily?"

Jane thought for a bit. 

"Well, the mask usually does the trick. Most people don't use their sensing abilities when they see the mask." Jane said.

"Toby's just extra sensitive to that sort of stuff. I could get some charms and wards and whatnot to mask her even further, but a malus would easily be able to smell her."

"Well, I'd rather take extra precautions. Better to be safe than sorry. To increase her chances of survival and to increase our chances of not getting caught." 

Tabby has good interpersonal leadership skills when she's not shy and anti-social. She's always been known as the unofficial ringleader of her group when they were alive unknowingly. And she unknowingly did what she does best. Taking the reigns of any situation.

"I actually don't think it would be safe for her to go out at all." Jane mused. 

"She would still be a target because no one would recognize her." Toby had a bad feeling about helping her but knew that it was the right thing to do. This stuff happened a lot. Just usually, the humans would die within the hour of them getting here.

"Well then, why doesn't someone stay here with her while we look for her friends...or what's left of them.....and like meet up at a secret place or something like that?"

Tabby shifted uncomfortably. Her intuition was screaming at her to be extremely careful about this. 

"Our resources would be stretched too thin if we left someone here. We have to scour an entire city without help." Toby said. Kayla was staring at her hands.

"Well, do you have any ideas?" She asked them both of them.

"We could leave her here. As long as the door is locked and she doesn't leave, she'll be okay."  
"Okay...so are we still going to look for her friends?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay then. Let's go."

Jane led Kayla back to the room. 

"Whatever you do, don't open the door if someone knocks. I have my own key. The doors to the bedroom and bathroom lock as well. The windows have bars on them. No one can get in through there. If you smell sulfur, hide."

Tabby was fidgeting with the bottom of her shirt again. It wasn't getting into trouble that bothered her. She knew how to take severe punishments. It was just the fear of getting caught that bothered her. She just got this crazy second chance at life, and she was already committing high treason. She wasn't sure what the punishments would entail coming from the Slenderman, but she knew it wouldn't be a pretty picture. Death at best. However, her intuition and conscience were telling her to help. She always believed in giving others what she couldn't have if she can help it. In Kayla's case, it was a chance to go back to an everyday life and have her friends about. She didn't like make difficult decisions, but she was also taught to do what she thought was right no matter the cost. And that will outweigh everything always. Toby knew this was wrong. He knew that no human deserved to live. He had been taught that humans were worthless ever since he joined this life. He should want to kill this girl and her friends. But...he didn't. There was no point in it. He was having a bit of a crisis. Why didn't he want to kill her? Why did he want her to get to live as well as her friends? He was taught never to disobey the Slenderman, that his word was law and there was nothing he could do about it. Oh...well, as long as he didn't get caught. Right? Tabby's anxiety was growing. She couldn't disobey a direct order. Her stepdad taught her that from a young age, or else she got beaten. The same thing would go for the Slenderman. Only if she disobeyed, she was pretty sure she would get a fate a lot worse than a beating and death. Her stepdad also taught her that you have to be manipulative, cruel, mean, and selfish—no one else's life matters except your own. And if you have to use people for your own survival, including death, then so be it. But yet that's not her. Sure she was mean and harsh and lacked a conscious, but that's just more of a coping mechanism. But her intuition said otherwise. She knew deep down that it was the right thing to do. And she was good at being sneaky, so she shouldn't get caught. She cleared her throat, pushed away from her stepdad's teachings, and stood up straight, smoothening out her shirt with her hands shakily at her sides.   
"So are we going or not?"

Jane nodded. She helped Kayla back to the room. She figured that Kayla should sleep now. Once Kayla was in bed and dozing off, Jane went to her closet and began to load up on some weapons and some placeholder masks. She doubted these people were alive. But maybe with luck, they would find at least one. Tabby tried to neutralize her anxiety by taking a couple of shallow, deep breaths, but it made her more nauseous, and she had a hard time swallowing. She still showed no emotion, though. Jane was also nervous. The chances of finding her friends alive were minimal, and the chances of getting them all out alive were even smaller. Tabby waited for everyone else. Her left eye twitched a little due to anxiety. Jane and Toby were ready to go. Jane had made sure Kayla was comfortable. Tabby followed them out the door. Toby said his goodbyes and immediately set off to try to find them. She said goodbye to Toby, not really wanting to be left without him. She looked over at Jane. 

"Now it's just the two of us."

Toby waved as he left. Jane nodded. 

"Hopefully, we can find them...alive, I mean.".

Tabby gave him a small wave back. She turned to Jane faking the confidence to get rid of her anxiety. 

"I hope so too...hopefully none of us get caught...let's go" she leads the way heading towards the library first.

Tabby gave him a small wave back. She turned to Jane faking the confidence to get rid of her anxiety. "I hope so too...hopefully none of us get caught...let's go" she leads the way heading towards the library first.

"Hopefully," she agreed. 

They needed to find Angelina and Kyle. She looked for landmarks that she saw earlier when Toby showed her around since she was awful at street names. She kept her hands in her pockets and kept her head down to avoid any attention drawn to them. Jane continued to walk, a little uneasy. Tabby was a lot less safe with her than she was with Toby, mainly because people disliked Jane. Tabby was pretty confident that she could hold her own for a good 20 minutes in a given fight and even protect Jane if she had to. If she died, then she dies, and that's that. However, she was pretty sure that Jane could hold her own as well for the most part. She walked with a mixture of confidence and lack of self-confidence all at the same time. Jane was a competent person. She was good at what she did. She could easily protect them both, but it would get her into trouble. She was disgraced, so attempting to defend herself from other highly ranked proxies was a no go. Kayla had given them a picture to work off of. Kyle was a sandy blonde with a friendly smile. Angelina was a beautiful Korean girl with twinkly eyes, a playful smile, and a devil's large tattoo on her thigh. Erica was a middle eastern descent girl, with black hair pulled into a ponytail and a slim physique. Nico was a tall kid with wavy dark hair and a dark complexion. He had a cheeky smile and looked like an amiable person. They got to the library. Tabby was wringing out her shirt since her anxiety was sky high again. She marched right up the library steps and headed inside, and waited for Jane. Jane followed her inside. The cool air sent goosebumps up her arms. She saw the librarians on edge. Tabby took note of the librarian's uneasiness to the back of the library. She assumed that not many people went the way back and thought that there would be plenty of hiding places for others to hide in there if they looked hard enough. 

Jane turned and saw one of the librarians right behind her.

"Are you here for the special package?" The librarian asked. 

"I beg your pardon?" Jane was a little confused.

"The special package." The librarian stated, pointing at one of Jane's pockets. The pocket the photo was in.

"...I might be. Is..." She whispered the last part. "Is he here?" 

The librarian nodded slowly.

Tabby breathe a visible sigh of relief and gave a small smile to Jane.

"We got one alive so far. So far, so good," she whispered.

Jane wasn't too sure. She wouldn't call him alive until she saw him. The librarian led them to a room further in the back. It was much colder back there. 

"He is sedated." The librarian said. 

"We are not allowed to kill. That is for you to do." 

Jane, thinking quickly, replied, "We won't do it in the library. It will be done in private. You don't have to clean up our mess." 

The librarian nodded. Tabby nodded, too, going along with the situation. 

"We'll take it from here," Tabby said, faking the confidence that was in her voice.

The librarian led them to a locked room. They unlocked it. Kyle was huddled in the corner, tied up and gagged but seemingly unharmed. 

Tabby nodded at the librarian "thank you very much. We got our jobs from here on out."

The librarian nodded and slunk out of the room. Kyle looked up at them with fear in his wide eyes. His face was bruised. He looked like he had been through a lot. 

Tabby bent down to his level.

"Hey, we're not going to hurt you. In fact, we're going to get you out of here with your friends and try to send you guys back home tonight. Do you understand?" She whispered.

She looked over at Jane.

"Where are we bringing him exactly?" She whispered.

"We take him home. Or I can while you search for the others. Maybe Toby's there with one of the others." Jane whispered back to her.

Kyle was still trembling but looked hopeful.

"I'll go with you. I mean, two is better than one" she helped Kyle up. 

In reality, she didn't want to be left alone when it's only day 2 in this new life for her. She didn't trust that she would be safe enough by herself. And she certainly didn't want to have the chance of getting caught by herself or worse for Jane to be by herself if they got caught. Jane nodded. She was a little worried that something would happen if either one of them were alone. She waited for a bit before untying his ropes. Tabby helped. She was a master at tying and untying things since she has tiny hands so she can undo any knot, and she went through a phase when she was 4 when she would tie her stuffed animals up like they were being captured and then untie them. Soon Kyle was freed up. Jane found something on the floor. 

Kyle pointed to it, and said: "That's my hearing aid." 

Jane handed it to him quickly, looking around. Kyle spoke very loudly. After he had put them back in, he said in a whisper. 

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she whispered back. "Now, let's get you out of here. We have Kayla. She's safe. And we're trying to find the others."

"Oh god..." Kyle seemed incredibly stressed out. "At least you have Kayla-I think Erica might have her phone on her. I could try to call her, but I don't want to put her into any trouble-"

"I wouldn't recommend that," Tabby whispered quickly "technically, we're not supposed to be doing this. We could get caught and be in serious trouble. It would be easier if you just let us look for them, okay?".

Kyle nodded. He understood but was so frustrated that he couldn't help. 

Jane handed him a mask.

"Put that on. When we walk, act as you belong here."

"Also, keep your head down low, keep your hands in your pockets, and don't make too much eye contact."

Kyle nodded again. He wished he could go out looking for his friends but understood that he would be endangering their lives by protesting. Tabby nodded and turned to Jane. 

"So, where are we going from here?"

"Let's take him back to the apartment. Unless you want to risk taking him with us."

"Apartment is better. Less risky”

"You're right," Jane said.

Kyle looked a little unhappy at the idea of not seeing the action and trying to help, so Jane said. 

"Kayla needs someone right now. She would be delighted to know that you were okay." 

Kyle's face softened, and he nodded.

"Yeah, she seemed really worried about you and the rest of your friends," said Tabby,

"Kayla's like that," Kyle said with a small smile. 

Jane smiled at him.

"Alright, let's go," she whispered with a mischievous smile.

Jane nodded and led them out. Kyle did his best to look cool and confident as they walked through the library and out the door. On the inside, he was looking around, praying to see one of his friends. God...what would Nico do? He was good at this stuff...

Tabby kept sauntering forward and held her head low and her hands in her pockets. Jane essentially powerwalked them home. They didn't get any weird glances. Tabby kept checking behind her to make sure that Kyle was still with them and to make sure that no one else was following them. She kept her mind blank, too, so that no one could read her mind as someone could walk by. Jane kept them clear of areas where there was many mali or even monsters that had a strong sense of smell. They managed to get to the home without a hitch. 

She breathe a sigh of relief. 

"That wasn't so bad. We actually make a great team".

Jane smiled slightly. 

"I suppose we do." 

She got to the apartment and unlocked it. Toby wasn't back yet, but that didn't mean anything. 

"Okay. Kayla is in Jane's room sleeping; just stay here and hide, and we'll be back with Angelina, hopefully. That's the goal here", said Tabby.

Kyle nodded. 

"What about Erica and Nico?" He asked quietly.

"Our other....teammate is working on it. Since Erica is always on the run, it would be hard to pinpoint her down for where she is. As for Nico, since he likes to try to hide in plain sight, it would be hard for us to pick him out. Our other....teammate is good at tracking and picking out people as that," Tabby explained. 

She hesitated on what to call Toby since he was Jane's friend, but she didn't consider him a friend. He needed to earn her trust more to be considered that. She only thought him as an acquaintance that she feels like she owes. Kyle nodded. He remained hopeful that his friends were alive. He sat down on the couch right when there was a knock on the door. Kyle almost jumped out of his skin. Jane quickly ushered him into the bathroom and closed the door behind him before going to the door and peeking outside. Tabby felt the familiar adrenaline coursing through her full blast in overtime and felt the familiar dread in her stomach. She tensed up and stood in a defensive potential fighting stance, ready to grab her knives out if needed. Her anxiety spiked up again. Jane gave her a look to tell her to put the knives away. She opened the door a crack. An unfamiliar proxy was at the door. He was tall and muscular, and honestly rather good looking, with neatly groomed red hair and grey eyes.

"I'm here for my teammate's mask." He snapped at Jane.

Jane nodded and forced a smile. "Of course. For Styx, yes?" 

The man nodded, looking past Jane into the apartment. Tabby quickly put them away and gave a sheepish, apologetic look. She looked at him with a hint of nostalgia and sadness. He looked like a male version of her best friend, Autumn. With her Auburn hair and her stormy gray eyes. Jane went to get the mask. The unfamiliar man came inside the apartment and sat down on one of the couches while he waited. He glanced at Tabby. She gave a shy smile and a small wave with her bandaged left hand. The man gave her a slight, somewhat approving nod. 

"You knew?" He asked in his somewhat stern voice. 

It wasn't like he tried to sound that way. He just did. 

"Yeah, my life turned into this last night," She said awkwardly as she rubbed the back of her neck.  
"Ah, I see." The man said. 

He was the leader of his own group of five, and he had been a proxy for about 20 years. He had been turned at just 12 years old, so this was the only life he knew. He understood that Tabby was probably stressing about it. Usually, he didn't care; she would learn. But he was training a new proxy in his own group, so he was feeling much more sympathetic than usual. She fidgeted with her shirt slightly, looking down. She wasn't good at keeping in conversation with strangers. 

The man looked away for a bit. 

"My name's R.," He told her plainly.

"Are you waiting here for a mask, or has Jane not told you what she is?".

She looked up quickly "my name is Tabby. No, I already have my own mask. She's just keeping me company until my mentor, for lack of better words to come back," which was sort of right. The only form of lying she can do is lying by omission. She looked down. 

"Ah, I see. That's kind of her." R said, looking away from Tabby. Jane soon came out of another room with the mask in a box.

Tabby nodded, still not looking up. Jane handed R the box. He thanked her and stood up to leave. Tabby said a quick goodbye. R nodded at her and left. Jane closed the door behind him with a big sigh of relief. Tabby also gave a big sigh of relief, too as well now that her anxiety died down. She let kyle out of the bathroom. Kyle was physically shaking from nerves. He sunk onto the couch, holding his shaking hands. 

"You're okay now," she understood. 

When anxiety is sky high, it makes her too wound up to attacking every little thing that moves sometimes. Other days it's awful to the end of where she throws up or dry heaves. Jane got Kyle some water to settle him down. She checked in on Kayla. She was out like a light, snuggled into the blankets. Jane checked to make sure she was still breathing and whatnot due to how peaceful she looked. Kyle looked so relieved to see his friend okay. Jane glanced at Tabby. 

"We should probably go..."

Tabby nodded. "You're right," she looked over at Kyle "you sure you're going to be okay here by yourself?"

Kyle nodded. "Yeah-I will be." He said, sipping his water. 

"Alright...." she said, a little unsure she looked like she didn't believe him but left it alone. She looked over at Jane.   
"Let's go."

Jane nodded. 

"If you see a man with goggles and a mouthguard at the door, let him in. If it's anyone else, pretend that no one's home. If you smell sulfur, hide. If worst comes to worst, every door in this house locks."

Tabby nodded and waited for Jane. Jane left and closed the door behind her. She could have sworn she heard footsteps. Tabby followed her, still keeping her head down and keeping her hands in her pockets as not to draw attention to herself. Just as they were about to leave, Toby came straggling up the stairs, holding someone in his arms. Both Toby and the figure were covered in blood. Jane could tell that the model was a girl and assumed it was Erica. Toby looked very pale. Neither he nor Jane knew anything more than basic first aid, and it was clear the girl needed more than that. Tabby was frantic when she saw the sight of Toby.

"What happened? are you okay?" She saw the state of the girl. 

Tabby knew what to do somewhat; she knew slightly more than basic first aid since her mom used to work at a hospital as a CNA before she got fired. So she taught Tabby what she knew when she had the time. The rest was research and figuring it out to patch herself and her friends up after fights. She becomes calmer and took charge of the situation.

"Alright, lay her down. I'm going to need some sort of cloth, water to put pressure on the wounds to stop the bleeding and clean up the blood to see just how much damage there is. Possibly some bandages too, please". 

Toby didn't feel any pain, but that didn't mean he wasn't injured. He had come across a malus just about to take a bite of the girl after overpowering her. The girl had multiple deep lacerations on her head and body, multiple deep bite marks, claw marks, a couple of stab wounds, and probably even more than Toby couldn't see. Jane opened the door to her apartment and ordered Kyle to wait with Kayla. Toby laid the girl on the couch and went to get some water and cloth. Jane took one look at the girl and left the apartment to get someone with actual medical training. She knew Tabby would help a lot, but she also knew a medic could ensure the girl's survival. She knew Kate would do it and keep her mouth shut about it. Tabby knelled by the girl's side. She gulped as the sight made her have flashbacks to when her friends jumped and the state of their bodies after. So much blood and cracked skulls and contortions that wasn't normal for a body to make. Ones that told you that they were most certainly dead. This girl looked worse than them. Her stomach was doing flip-flops, and she felt like she was going to throw up. Her tan skin looked pale and clammy. Toby began wiping some of the blood off. He noticed Erica's breathing was shallow. Cleaning the wounds revealed how deep they were, but thankfully the head wounds were the only surface level. Head wounds just tended to bleed a lot. Jane soon came back with Kate, who glanced at both Tabby and Toby and sort of gestured for them to move so she could get to Erica. She had her medical bag with her. Tabby was helping to getting some of the blood on her hands and clothes. They actually managed to clean up half of the blood. There wasn't so much blood as she started with. When Kate and Jane got there, she moved out of the way along with Toby. She turned to Toby, "Sit down and try not to move too much. I'm going to clean you up. And don't say that you can do it yourself. Just because you can't feel pain doesn't stop the damage from happening" She said it in a way that said that it wouldn't be wise to argue with her.

Kate immediately got to work helping Erica. Thankfully, it looked like she would be okay. Nothing was deep enough to get to any organs, and no arteries or veins were cut. All of her wounds looked like self-defense wounds. Toby didn't protest. He didn't know if he was wounded or not. He had killed the malus that had attacked Erica, mainly so there were no witnesses. Hopefully, no one would find the body until his scent was gone from the scene. Jane was helping both Tabby and Kate. Kate was silent for a while, before speaking. 

"Why are you trying to save the human?" She asked plainly. Just because Kate disagreed didn't mean that she was doing a bad job on Erica.

Tabby was gentle with cleaning Toby. Her bandaged hand was dirty and bloodied, and her hands were rough and calloused in general. But that's from fights and working in a kitchen. She and Jane cleaned up most of the blood. He only had a few deep lacerations but nothing fatal. If he could feel the pain, he would just be sore for a couple of days. She answered Kate while helping Jane Bandaged Toby up. Taking the blame for both of them.

"It was my idea, to begin with. She could potentially have what I couldn't have, which was a real family and friends. I recently lost the only people I considered family in one fell swoop. I-I don't know. I guess it was an attempt to make sure that no one else has to go through what I went through the best I can in the circumstances that I'm given," she said quietly.

Which was right; that's why she wanted to help Jane in the first place. Not only because it was what she thought was the right thing to do, but she saw it as a chance to make sure that they could have what she can't have. Their friends all together, alive and in one piece. It doesn't help that she has a weird form of a hero complex that she got from her stepdad. So she also saw it as a chance to attempt to be some form of a hero in a small sense. 

Kate gave her a little nod. She was quiet as she stitched up the girl's wounds, being very neat and tidy with her work. After she finished, she began to apply bandages. As she did, she spoke. 

"I understand why you did this, but just know that you can never do this for a human again, alright? " Erica was still barely conscious. 

Jane gulped a bit. 

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" 

"No, of course not. But I won't lie for you either.", said Kate.

Kate finished patching up Erica. 

"Jane, do you have any room you can put her in? A bed of some sort?"   
"I can put her in my own room. The guest room is being used." Jane said, looking down at Erica with a curious look in her eyes. 

Toby massaged his bandaged arm, also glancing at Erica, then at Tabby. Tabby looked down and look everywhere but at the people. Some of the colors came back to her. She was less pale now, but she still looked like she was about ready to throw up. She massaged her left hand, making sure that there wasn't any more damage to it. She winced as she felt the phantom cramping pain in her hand. Jane and Kate moved Erica to Jane's room. It would be comfortable in there. They came back out. Jane's living area was covered in blood, but they could clean it later. Toby looked a little uneasy, but at the same time, unbothered. Tabby was fidgeting with her left hand and shifting uncomfortably. Kate left soon after. Toby sighed. 

"I would have come back with Nico, but...but he's dead." He said quietly. "He was the human that was murdered earlier. The one we overheard."

Tabby had that look of dawning realization like an "oh" moment.

She nodded. 

"Well, no one said life had to fight fair. At least we got 3 out of 4; that ain't bad" She sounded harsh, tired, and indifferent all at the same time.

"Three out of the five. We still need to find Angelina. Alive or dead." Toby reminded them.

"Right, sorry" she looked at them with tired eyes and a small apologetic smile.

"Kayla said that Angelina would hide out in the woods somewhere. The logical places to hide there are in the shrubs or the trees."

Toby got up to start towards the door, but Jane pulled him down. 

"You need to stay here and rest. Look after the apartment for me?".

"She's right. You're in rough shape. I'll go with her" Tabby gave him a soft, reassuring small smile.

Toby sighed. 

"Alright, fine." 

He seemed a little dejected about being left out of the action, almost like a little kid. Jane hid her grin behind her mask, but her eyes twinkled.

"You being here will be beneficial, I think. You can start asking these kids where they live and whatnot. So we can figure out how to get them home”.

Tabby hid her giggle in the guise of a cough. She couldn't help but squeal internally in her head at how adorable Toby was being. Thank god there was no one here that could read her mind. She shook her head to focus. She would not and could not afford to get attached or care. She promised herself that she wouldn't forget her friends, and moving on means forgetting. She cleared her throat and became more serious. 

"We should get going."

Jane nodded. 

"Of course." She hoped the girl was alive but wasn't too hopeful. They had been much too lucky lately. Toby went to let Kyle out of the bathroom.

She gave one last look at Toby before disappearing out the door with Jane. 

Jane sighed. 

"You ready to do this again?" She asked. 

Jane looked very tired. She checked to make sure Tabby had her mask on. 

Tabby had her mask on. Tabby also sounded tired but resigned at the same time.

"I'm going to have to be. I've made my choice to help, and I'm sticking by it regardless of what the consequences might be".

I mean, the poor kid has never made a good decision in her life; why start now?

Jane nodded. 

"As long as we're not caught, it's fine." She assured Tabby with a smile. 

They walked out of the apartment building. Tabby nodded and had her usual walking position and began humming the prologue song from into the woods since that's where they were heading anyways. Jane didn't know the reference. She didn't ask, however. They soon ducked into the large expanse of woods and began to walk. Tabby relaxed a little since the woods were like her natural habitat. But not by much. Woods surrounded her town and at Rosewood in the way back, like behind the boarding section of Rosewood. There was a semi hidden clearing in the woods where she and Autumn would spend time together, ranging from 10 minutes to 2 hours after school together on most days. It was a place where they could be themselves and speak their minds and just relax for a short time. Jane was much more on edge. The woods were where the non-humanoid monsters lived. Large and small, and all aggressive. She knew The Rake lived close by here. She hoped and prayed that Angelina was still alive, but her hope slowly dwindled as they got deeper into the woods. Tabby was on high alert at her surroundings. She was looking everywhere. Up at the trees, down and around. Not only looking for Angelina but also keeping an eye out for other dangers that could be sneaking upon them. Jane heard a low groan and creaking among the trees. She heard the rustling of leaves and the crunching of grass. The forest loved to play tricks on them. Tabby jumped a little and was ready to jump in front of Jane in a fighting stance to protect her. She just continued walking, ignoring the forest tricks. Jane heard whispering and crying from deeper in the forest. She ignored it, knowing how the forest worked. It was easy to get lost. By chance, she looked at the ground and saw footprints.

"Should we follow them?" asked Tabby.

"Well, we have no other leads.", said Jane.

Tabby slowly and cautiously followed to where the footprints lead to. Jane did as well, humming tonelessly under her breath. The footprints led deep into the woods. Honestly, with the way the shadows were in the forest. They covered Tabby really well; she actually blended in with the forest. Jane soon smelled smoke, which she found was odd. The aura of the part of the forest they were in now was very eerie. Something was seriously wrong in these parts. The trees were twisted and groaned with every breeze. The grass was a sick, almost peach color. The trees' bark was light in patches, suggesting some sort of corruption. Tabby was familiar with the dark aura considering she had one from Rosewood's darkness following her around. On top of her own raw personal darkness that's just barely beneath the surface. But this....this was different....it was close to the dark, powerful, suffocating aura that the entity who gave her more knowledge on the supernatural had 13 years ago. But not quite it since she could tell it was something else beyond that. She was fighting to keep that flashback from happening. She was more on the edge and uneasy. The footsteps seemed to disappear little by little until they became scarce. 

"Are you sure we should keep going this way? I mean, the footsteps seem to stop right around this area anyway...." trailed off Tabby.

Jane pointed to the distance. She could smell smoke. And in the distance, she could have sworn she saw a small figure, wrapped in a coat, sitting next to the fire. It really did look like Angelina from a distance. 

"Should we approach it?".

"I don't see why not..."

Tabby took a deep breath and walked forward. Jane joined her. One of them stepped on a twig, and it made a loud crack. The figure turned and looked at them. She didn't flee. Tabby froze and gave a small wave. Jane slowly approached closer. Tabby continued to walk closer. Jane soon saw a girl who looked a lot like Angelina. But something was...wrong with her. Tabby noticed something was wrong too. She stopped walking. Her intuition was screaming at her that to stop and run. But she didn't raise herself to be a coward, and it was beaten into her not to be one. So she just froze. She gave Jane a look that said, "are you sure that we should continue?". Jane frowned softly. She decided to call out to the girl. "Angelina?" The girl looked up at them. She had some weird markings on her hands that were definitely not on the photo that Kayla had shown them, but otherwise, she was a dead ringer.

"Are you Angelina? Because we can get you out of here and somewhere safe," Jane finally said. 

Angelina nodded. She turned away a bit and coughed into her elbow before offering them a small smile. 

"Let's get you out of here" Tabby offered her right hand to help her up and to show her that they weren't going to hurt her.

Angelina took her hand. Her hands felt freezing. Jane noted the marks and felt a little uneasy. Tabby helped her up and eyed her to see if she had injuries. She began to walk with her. Angelina didn't look injured. Just a bit off. She walked with Jane and Angelina. Making sure that she was still with them. Jane looked at Angelina's hands. 

"How long has that been going on, hon?" She asked politely. 

"About two days," Angelina responded.

Tabby listened intently. Jane was just chatting to Angelina to calm her down and get her to open up. Tabby paid attention to her surroundings to make sure that they weren't going to be attacked. Jane learned that Angelina had never met her father, that her mother was a principal at a high school, and that she had a little sister named Amanda. Tabby was making comparisons from Angelina's life and her old life in her head. Tabby had two brothers. One older and one younger, she is the middle child. Mother worked a lot, so she never really saw her. Real dad died, and her stepdad was an abusive stay at home dad. Jane could tell by how Angelina talked and spoke about her life and the events within them that she was a hybrid. There was no question about it. She would be a lot safer there than any of her other friends. Tabby continued to say nothing as she listened and kept walking. They soon got to the woods' entrance, almost like the forest was trying to spit them out. 

"Ah, finally, it's good to be out."

Jane nodded. Angelina looked at the ground and avoided Tabby's face. Tabby looked at Angelina curiously. Wondering why she was avoiding her gaze. But she assumed it was just a nervous thing. After all, she did the same thing with Toby at first. She didn't say anything on it, so she dropped it. And felt a weird aura coming off of Angelina. 

"Are my friends okay?" She asked Jane quietly. 

Jane nodded.

"Well, most of them are...Nico is well....dead," Tabby put it bluntly, and she shifted uncomfortably and looked down.

Jane expected Angelina to break down in tears. To cry. But she didn't. She just kept her eyes on the ground.   
"It's my fault." She whispered.

"Hey, listen, it wasn't your fault. You didn't know. From what Kayla told us, your kind of all went separate ways after you all landed. How could you have anything to do with his death. He's the one who got himself killed. Not you", Tabby said softly.

"No, you don't understand," Angelina said quietly. "It was my fault-" She stopped talking and looked at the ground.

Tabby nodded.

"You can tell us later once we get somewhere semi safer. Let's keep going".

Jane nodded. They would be much safer with Angelina if she were correct in her assumption that she was a hybrid. Tabby sighed and rubbed her face. Her insomnia was wearing off, and it wasn't until now how she realized how tired she was. She kept walking forward. Jane saw the apartment building in the distance. Tabby continued walking, making sure that Jane and Angelina were right behind her. Jane caught up with Tabby.

"Do you see the marks on her hands?" She whispered to Tabby.

Tabby nodded and whispered, "yeah, but I didn't say anything about it."

"It looks a lot like the corruption of the woods now that I think about it."

"Why would the woods be corrupted by that, though?".

“No, that's not it. I think the woods are starting to corrupt her."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think she's telling us the full truth.".

"Well, once we get into your apartment, we'll ask her again since we're not going to be out in the open."

Jane nodded. They soon got to the apartment building entry. Jane pulled the doors open. A couple of proxies were hanging by the front desk. Tabby stood up straight and kept an emotionless expression, and just stared straight ahead, not giving any of the proxies any attention. Jane did the same, and Angelina followed suit awkwardly, also ignoring the group. They were picking on a younger proxy. Tabby gave a quick pitiful look at the younger proxy who was being picked on but quickly looked away, deciding not to do anything as she had bigger fish to fry with Jane and Angelina. Jane sighed and just quickly ushered them along. Angelina kept her head down. Jane noticed how tired she was and how frayed she must have been for the whole day. Tabby sighed in relief as it was good to be back somewhere familiar. Jane opened the door to the apartment. Toby was talking to Kyle softly. It looked like Kyle had been crying. Erica had gotten out of bed and was settled on the couch with Kayla, who had also been crying. Tabby sighed and sounded tired.

"What happened?" 

Toby sighed.

"I told them the news about Nico. The kid was really popular." He muttered to Tabby.

Tabby rolled her eyes, which made her look insensitive. Death happens all the time. To her, they were acting really sensitive. They should just get over it. In fact, they should be goddamn lucky that they only lost one friend and not all of them as she did. Then she gave a guilty, apologetic look because she knew better. She understands what it's like to lose a friend. She cleared her throat. 

"We've found Angelina. Have you found out where they all live yet?" She said quietly after a while.

Erica was really the only one who noticed Tabby's eye roll. The rest were too busy in their own grief. Erica drew further into herself, eyebrows furrowed. Angelina didn't go to talk to her friends. She just lingered by the door.

"I have," Toby said. "They live pretty close to Rosewood, actually.".

Tabby palled at the mention of her old school. 

"Well, that's convenient. I know where that is. How do we get them back?".

Toby sighed. 

"I'll take them. Don't worry about it."

He wanted this over and done with.

"You sure?" She leaned against the door. 

If she took one more step, she would collapse onto the floor, and her body would shut down to get the sleep that she desperately needed.

Toby nodded.

"Yeah. You should rest." He said.

He was tired too, but Jane and Tabby had done a lot of heavy lifting that day. 

"I'm not tired," but that was a bullshit lie.

Toby saw straight through it. 

"Uh-huh." He said. "Just stay here until I get back."

"Fine," she said like an annoyed child reluctantly giving in at being told what to do.

Toby sighed and smiled at Tabby. Jane looked exhausted as well. She wished Toby luck. 

"Hey, try not to die, okay?" said Tabby,

"I can't make any promises." Toby joked a bit.

"That's why the keyword here is 'try,'" she said with a slightly annoyed tone, but it was more playful, and she managed to give him a small smile.

Toby laughed. "I will." 

He looked at Erica. 

"Can you walk?" He asked her. 

She nodded. 

"The rest of you good?" 

He got nods. Angelina stood near a corner, away from her friends. Tabby looked at all of them and wished them luck. Kayla thanked her softly. Kyle nodded to her. Erica remembered her eyeroll, it seemed and just glanced at her with a slight nod. Angelina thanked her quietly but didn't look at her. Tabby gave them all a subtle nod back. Toby led the group of teens out.

Tabby was going about Jane's apartment, helping to clean up the blood. She felt like she would drop from exhaustion and go into a coma for a week like she normally does when her insomnia wears off. She willed herself to stay awake, but it was clear that she was struggling. Jane had gotten most of it. The apartment was soon pretty clean. Jane was exhausted. Her feet and body were sore from the long day. It was hot, so she turned on the ac and took off her wig to put it away. Since Tabby was here, she would keep her mask on, but when she left, she'd take it off. Tabby finished the last bit of it. She stood back up. She swayed back and forth a little. The adrenaline wore off, and her anxiety was gone now that it was done and they wouldn't get caught. Tabby felt herself collapsing on the floor. Her breathing was shallow, and her mind retreated further into the dark, dreamless void that she called sleep. She was out. ane sighed. Poor girl. She gently picked her up and brought her to the guest room. Toby could bring her back to her actual room when he got back. She tucked Tabby into the comfortable blankets and kept the lights soothingly dim but not all the way off. Jane was tired, but she would wait for Toby to get back. Satisfied that Tabby was alright, she went back out to the living area and took her mask off. Tabby was in her natural sleeping position. Her knees were brought up to her stomach, and her arms were crisscrossed across her chest with her hands covering the back of her neck, and her back against a corner of the wall and bed so no one could even have the chance of getting to her vital areas while she slept. Because once she actually gets to sleep, she's the dead weight; she can't hear or feel a thing. Which is dangerous to her in the state that she's in. Jane relaxed in the living room for about an hour. Toby still wasn't back yet. She knew the portal closest to those kid's houses was a while away, but she was still a little worried for Toby. Toby had only been doing this for at the most two years. He was still, by their society's standards, new. Tabby was still dead asleep. She was slightly more relaxed and let a little slack in her sleeping position. She was still curled up in her protective position, but she wasn't as tense about it. If you really paid attention, you can hear her snoring quietly. About three hours later, Toby came back. He looked absolutely exhausted. He was unharmed, thankfully. Jane hurriedly put her mask on and led him inside the apartment. Tabby wasn't aware of anything that was going on. Tabby was still unconscious. Toby looked tired and annoyed with everything. He sat and talked with Jane for a while about what had gone on and then offered to take Tabby back to the room. Tabby was still out. She's going to hate herself in the morning more than she already does. She hates the vulnerability that she showed and was about to show Toby. She's going to have to explain how her sleeping process works when her body finally gives out. In the meantime, she was unsuspecting of anything. Jane offered to help Toby take Tabby back to the room, but Toby could do this alone. Tabby was still curled up, and she was dead weight when she was dead asleep. But she's generally light for the most part, so it should be easier for him to carry her. Toby picked her up quickly to help her to her room. Tabby rested her cheek against his chest and hung on to him for dear life. It was a weird form of cuddling almost that she was unaware of. You could hear her snoring gently. 

Toby smiled to himself. She reminded him a little bit of a little kid at the moment. He set her down in her bed and tucked her in. Tabby still clung to his hoody, practically pulling him into her bed.   
"Stay...please...Autumn....don't....don't leave me again..." she whimpered in her sleep. 

It would be cute if it weren't so sad. She sounded like a hurt, lost puppy. Toby let out a surprised squeak, now very confused. But he could tell Tabby wasn't doing okay. He let her hold onto his hoodie as he slowly moved to slip out of it. As soon as Toby was out of his hoodie. Tabby shifted her sleeping position to where she wrapped herself around his body. Or vice versa? But she was cuddling with it and had her cheek to his hood semi breathing in his scent. She actually calmed down a little, and her breathing went back to taking erythematic shallow breaths. Toby decided to let her hold onto the hoodie while she slept. There was no harm in it. The real damage would be if they were caught in a compromising situation. Proxies could have relationships, sure, but they had to be approved. Tabby continued to sleep and was more relaxed after her nightmare had passed. Toby went to go to sleep himself. Tabby would stay asleep for a while. Usually when her body eventually gives out, it's a substantial 3-day coma before it's just regular sleeping as much as she can for that week and maybe possibly get into a sleep routine until another bout of insomnia comes up. Toby would check on her in the morning. He figured she was exhausted. He understood that. When he first came here, he rarely slept. If anything needed to be done tomorrow, then Toby would have to wake her up himself. If not, then it's comatose for a week with her to catch up on sleep. Toby would wake her up the next day for the meeting then let her sleep more if she needed to. Tabby was nuzzling Toby's hoody and holding onto it. Almost like a security blanket. Toby let her do so. He was pretty tired himself. He went to his own room and flopped on the bed. The moment Tabby collapsed on the floor of Jane's apartment is the moment that she blacked out. So there's going to be a lot of explaining to do on both parts. Her head and body will hurt tomorrow morning from how hard she hit the floor, but she'll deal with that tomorrow. Toby hadn't known she'd fallen but wanted to leave her to sleep. He began to doze off into sleep. He felt...vaguely rewarded helping them. While Tabby was still knocked tf out. For the first time in forever, she felt at peace with herself for doing what she thought was right. At least she could give those kids what she couldn't have. The majority of their friends/family back and in one piece. In a sense, it made her feel like the hero she once was and not a god-awful person that just about everyone else, including herself, thought of her as. And in a little vague sense, she was making it up to Autumn only a fraction. Toby eventually was about to fall fast asleep. But then he heard a knock on the door. Swearing a little, he got up to answer the door, rubbing his eyes. It was Hoodie. Tabby was not aware of anything that was going on. Hoodie looked Toby up and down. 

"You look like a mess. Can I come in?".

Toby wordlessly moved so Hoodie could enter the apartment.

Tabby was vaguely awake. She knew something was going on but didn't care enough about it. She quickly fell back to sleep. She shifted so she could hide Toby's hoody underneath the covers more. So they wouldn't get into trouble...

Hoodie looked at Toby. 

"We have a little mission to do before we do the long mission with EJ."

Tabby was still asleep, but everything was entering her head subconsciously. Hoodie explained that there was a family that needed executing in the human realm. Tabby hoped that it wasn't hers. Or Horacio's, for that matter. She needed to kill him herself. Although she would be grateful to whoever killed him, she would be pissed because that was the whole point for her taking this second chance at life. If someone else did it, then it wouldn't be her fulfilling her promises that she made. But it would be someone else doing it for her. It wasn't hers. It was a random family. They had specific instructions. The family was five people. A father, aged 36. A mother, 34. A boy aged 12, a girl aged 9, and a newborn. The father and mother were to be killed. The boy would be trained as a proxy. The older girl would be given a trial period to see if she could be a proxy as well, and if not, she would be taken to The Valence Institution. The two men knew what was meant by that, so they didn't go into details. The baby was to be taken to the boss himself. At least she didn't have to die. They would be doing it tomorrow before leaving on their other mission. The plus side is it would give them a bit of cash. Tabby hoped that she wouldn't be involved. With the first mission. 

Toby looked at Hoodie.

"Anything else?"

"The boss wants Tabby to carry out the killings."

Toby shook his head. 

"No. It's too early. I'll do it."  
Tabby slept on, not knowing about the horrendous things they planned for her to do. Hoodie and Toby argued for a while, but eventually, Toby was just too tired to argue anymore. Hoodie was on the verge of hitting the boy. He may not be new...but he was still young and stupid for a proxy.

"We leave to go in 12 hours. Be ready by then.".

Oh. Poor Tabby. The many more hard choices that she'll have to make come tomorrow.


End file.
